THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


•1     ,     -/^     /^..c^^    J^,M^ 


C^.^^-<^<,-C^K«^t« 


/? 


THE   VOICE    OF 
THE     SCHOLAR 


THE   VOICE   OF 
THE   SCHOLAR 


WITH  OTHER 

ADDRESSES  ON  THE  PROBLEMS 

OF  HIGHER  EDUCATION 


Daviu    Starr    Jordan 

President  ok 
Leland    Stanford  Junior   Univi:rsity 


Paul  Elder  and  Company 
Publishers,  San  Francisco 
1903 


Lt 


Copyright,  1905 
by  Paul  Elder  and  Company 


The  Tomoje  Press 
Sail  Francisco 


TO 

ANDREW    DICKSON    WHITE 

IN 

TOKEN    OF    ADMIRATION    AND 

RESPECT 


The  present  volume  contains  a  number  of  addresses 
on  educational  subjects  delivered  by  the  author  on 
various  occasions  within  the  last  five  )'ears.  Most  of 
them  were  first  given  to  Stanford  audiences.  Of  the 
others,  ' '  The  University  and  the  Common  Man ' '  was 
given  at  the  University  of  Washington,  that  on  the 
' '  Personality  of  the  University ' '  at  the  University  of 
California,  and  that  on  ' '  College  Spirit ' '  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Missouri.  That  these  discourses  occasion- 
ally repeat  each  other  or  double  on  the  same  track  is 
explained,  if  not  excused,  by  the  fact  that  the  same 
author,  in  such  cases,  is  dealing  again  with  the  same 
topic.  The  publishers  express  their  indebtedness  to 
the  editors  and  publishers  of  the  Atla?itic  Monthly, 
the  Popular  Science  Monthly,  the  Forum,  the  Cosmo- 
polita7i  Magazi?ie,  and  the  Lidepcyident,  for  the  privi- 
lege of  reprinting  these  addresses  as  published  in  the 
magazines  in  question. 


TABLE   OF   CONTENTS 

Page 

I.  The  Voice  of  the  Scholar          .         .        .        .  i 

II.  The  Building  of  a  University        ...  26 

III.  An  Apology  for  the  American  University       -  44 

IV.  Relative  Values  in  Knowledge      -        -        -  70 
V.  Recent  Tendencies  in  College  Education         -  99 

VI.  The  Personality  of  the  University        -        -  122 

VII.  The  Higher  Education  of  the  Business  Man     -  128 

VIII.  A  Business  Man's  Conception  of  the  University  146 

IX.  The  University  and  the  Common  Man        -  167 

X.  The  Woman  and  the  University       ...  191 

XI.  The  University  of  the  United  States    -        -  212 

XII.  College  Spirit -  225 

XIII.  Politics  in  the  Schools 240 

XIV.  The  Lessons  of  The  Tragedy           -        -        -  261 
XV.  The  Hopes  of  Japan      -----  269 


THE   VOICE   OF   THE   SCHOLAR. 

THE  greatest  need  of  popular  government  is 
the  university.    The  greatest  need  of  higher 
education  is  democracy.     The  scholar  and 
the  man  must  work  together.    The  free  man 
must  be  a  scholar.     The  scholar  must  be  a  man. 

It  is  not  the  necessary  function  of  democracy  to 
do  anything  very  well.  There  is  nothing  in  collective 
effort  which  ensures  right  action.  Its  function  is  to 
develop  intelligence  and  patriotism  through  doing  for 
ourselves  all  things  possible  which  concern  us  individ- 
ually or  collectively.  To  take  responsibility  is  the 
surest  way  to  rise  to  it,  but  the  time  may  be  long  and 
errors  may  be  costly.  Courage  and  willingness  do 
not  guarantee  success.  Exact  knowledge  and  thor- 
ough training  are  essential  to  right  results.  In  these 
regards,  democracy  is,  in  the  nature  of  things,  defi- 
cient. These  the  university  must  contribute.  Gov- 
ernment by  the  people  needs  its  trained  and  educated 
men  more  than  any  other  kind  of  government ;  for 
while  monarchy  seeks  far  and  wide  for  strong  men 
and  wise  to  be  used  as  its  tools,  strength  and  wisdom 
is  the  daily  life  of  successful  democracy.  But  dem- 
ocracy is  always  prone  to  undervalue  wise  men,  and 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

imagines  vainly  that  it  can  get  along  well  enough 
without  their  help. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  university  needs  the 
people.  In  their  wants  and  their  uplifting  it  finds  the 
best  reason  for  its  existence.  ' '  The  bath  of  the  peo- 
ple," which  Lincoln  said  was  good  for  public  men,  is 
essential  to  the  university.  It  keeps  it  in  touch  with 
life.     It  holds  it  to  humanity. 

Those  who  regard  higher  education  as  a  social 
ornament,  valueless  except  as  a  badge  for  the  delight 
of  its  possessor,  and  those  who  regard  culture  as  the 
private  perquisite  of  the  elect  few,  are  alike  in  the 
wrong.  The  presence  of  men  of  culture  and  training 
raises  the  value  of  everything  about  them.  It  ensures 
the  success  of  enterprise,  the  safety  of  person  and 
property,  the  contact  with  righteousness  of  thought 
and  action,  which  is  the  mainspring  of  right  thought 
and  right  deed  in  the  future. 

Moreover,  if  clear  thinking  with  clean  living  is  good 
for  the  elect  few,  it  is  equally  good  for  the  mutable 
many.  Culture  not  only  raises  the  man  above  the 
mass,  it  turns  the  masses  into  men.  That  the  mul- 
titude may  imagine  themselves  men  before  they  hold  a 
man's  grasp  on  life,  is  the  grievous  danger  of  democ- 
racy. Here  again  the  university  plays  its  part, 
teaching  the  relative  value  of  ideals.  Under  its  criti- 
cism men  learn  that  good  results  are  better  than  good 
intentions,  and  that  they  demand  a  far  higher  order 
of  skill  and  courage. 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

I  heard  a  man  say  the  other  day  that  the  university 
men  were  not  on  his  side  of  a  certain  question.  In 
fact,  he  said,  the  college  men  are  always  on  the  con- 
trary side  on  every  question.  This  is  probably  true 
in  the  sense  he  meant ;  for  it  is  the  province  of  college 
men  to  judge  intentions  and  pretenses  by  ultimate 
results.  When  the  final  end,  according  to  the  experi- 
ence of  human  wisdom,  is  sure  to  be  bad,  wise  men 
must  oppose  the  beginning.  The  universities  have 
many  times  stood  in  opposition  to  the  popular  feeling 
of  the  time,  but  they  have  never  found  their  condem- 
nation in  the  final  verdict  of  history.  Only  he  who  has 
studied  the  affairs  of  men  critically,  impartially,  coldly, 
can  discover  the  real  trend  of  forces  in  the  movements 
of  today.  This  the  university  has  means  to  do.  It 
does  not  carry  elections,  in  fact  it  has  seldom  tried  to 
do  so  ;  for  the  results  of  an  election  play  a  very  small 
part  in  the  evolution  of  democracy:  not  to  carry 
elections,  but  rather  to  carry  wisdom  to  the  people, 
that  is  something  worth  doing.  The  words  of  experi- 
ence which  are  wasted  in  the  noise  of  the  shoutings 
become  potent  as  the  tumult  passes  by. 

The  people  suffer  many  ills  in  our  social  order,  for 
most  of  which  they  alone  are  responsible.  Because 
men  are  not  wise,  they  know  not  what  to  do.  In 
ignorance  and  weakness  they  find  themselves  the  sport 
of  fate,  the  flotsam  of  "manifest  destiny,"  the  victims 
of  evils  that  wisdom    and  virtue  instinctively  avoid. 

Next  to  knowing  what  to  do,  is  the  willingness  to 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

believe  that  some  one  else  possesses  this  knowledge. 
Scepticism  as  to  the  existence  of  skill  and  intolerance 
toward  the  possessor  of  knowledge  are  common 
features  of  democracy.  This  is  its  vulgar  side,  the 
disposition  to  do  mean  things  in  a  mean  way,  doubting 
that  there  exist  any  better  things  or  better  ways  of 
doing  them.  Through  this  kind  of  vulgarity,  the 
average  American  is  his  own  physician,  healing  himself 
with  drugs  of  which  he  does  not  even  know  the  name. 
As  a  result,  he  suffers  half  his  life  from  self-inflicted 
poisoning.  The  American  is  his  own  architect,  and  for 
this  reason  our  cities  are  filled  with  buildings  in  which 
nightmares  might  house,  were  it  not  for  their  fresh 
paint  and  smart  ornamentation.  The  American  is  his 
own  statesman,  following  his  own  impulses,  guided  by 
his  own  prejudices.  Thus  he  fills  the  land  of  the  free 
with  oppression  and  injustice.  When  he  can  no  longer 
shut  his  eyes  to  the  misery  he  has  wrought  he  falls 
back  on  his  good  intentions,  casting  the  blame  for  his 
blunders  on  impersonal  destiny. 

The  sense  of  personal  responsibility  and  personal 
adequacy  which  democracy  gives  is  of  vital  importance 
in  the  development  of  man.  But  it  has  its  bad  side  as 
well  as  its  good.  It  is  the  function  of  the  university 
to  struggle  against  the  bad,  day  and  night,  in  season 
and  out  of  season,  to  convert  it  into  the  good.  That 
vulgarity  is  free  to  express  itself  in  our  system  does 
not  exalt  vulgarity.  In  the  long  run,  vulgarity  finds 
its  surest  cure  in  freedom. 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

The  people  at  large  even  yet  do  not  understand 
nor  value  knowledge  and  power.  Only  those  who 
know  well  and  see  clearly  can  do  well.  Knowledge 
does  not  flatter  nor  coddle,  and  men  take  to  that  which 
pleases  them.  The  fact  that  the  majority  do  not 
believe  in  knowledge  is  the  reason  why  the  university 
must  always  be  in  opposition  to  prevailing  sentiment 
and  current  action.  ' '  When  were  the  good  and  true 
ever  in  the  majority  ? ' '  There  are  not  many  of  those 
who  speak  and  write  on  public  affairs  who  really  care 
for  what  is  just.  The  interest  of  most  men  lies  in  the 
success  of  the  "cause."  But  the  "cause,"  what- 
ever it  may  be,  is  only  an  incident  in  intellectual 
awakening,  a  mere  episode  in  social  development.  It 
is  in  the  actual  truth  that  the  public  weal  is  bound  up. 
No  honest  or  worthy  cause  appeals  to  the  self-pity  of 
those  it  addresses.  All  calls  to  the  weakness  or  vanity 
or  prejudice  or  passion  of  men  are  dishonest.  All 
dishonesty  results  in  evil.  Virtue  that  can  last  rests 
on  growing  honesty  and  growing  wisdom.  Because 
the  university  stands  for  the  free  search  for  truth,  its 
influence  must  be  opposed  to  that  of  passion  and  preju- 
dice. It  must  be  above  the  heats  of  the  hour,  and 
therefore  in  some  degree  antagonistic  to  them.  Thus 
those  who  strive  on  the  sands  of  the  arena  find  the 
university  distant  and  cold.  This  again  is  its  danger, 
that  it  shall  be  cold  and  distant.  Never  to  ' '  vex  at 
the  land's  ridiculous  miserie"  was  an  old  ideal  of  the 
university.      It  is  an  ideal  long  cherished  in  the  great 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

universities  of  England.  But  it  was  never  a  worthy 
ideal.  To  exist  for  the  needs  of  the  people  is  a  mis- 
sion worthy  of  Oxford  or  Harvard  or  Berlin.  It  is 
the  final,  highest  function  of  all  the  glorious  brother- 
hood of  plain  life  and  high  thought. 

To  keep  up  wisdom  among  men  is  the  natural 
function  of  the  university.  The  need  of  the  times  is 
not  of  men  to  die  for  the  right,  but  of  men  to  live  for 
it ;  not  of  men  to  oppose  popular  feeling  nor  even 
to  rouse  the  pubhc  conscience.  Better  than  this,  is  to 
train  the  public  thought.  What  we  want  is  not  a 
revival  of  zeal,  even  for  the  cause  of  righteousness, 
but  rather  a  revival  of  wisdom.  This  is  followed  by 
no  chill  nor  backsliding,  while  zeal,  however  well- 
meaning,  is  subject  to  ebbs  and  flows. 

I  heard  a  very  rich  man  say  not  long  ago  that  he 
had  no  faith  in  higher  education.  ' '  Nine  college  men 
out  of  every  ten, ' '  he  said,  ' '  build  up  a  wall  between 
themselves  and  life. ' '  By  life,  he  seemed  to  mean  the 
business  of  making  money.  If  this  be  life,  the  state- 
ment may  be  true,  but  even  judged  by  this  standard, 
we  must  believe  that  it  was  an  inferior  kind  of  college 
men  who  thrust  themselves  upon  his  notice.  Some 
people  look  upon  men  as  useful  only  as  they  can  use 
them.  The  rest  are  merely  competing  organisms,  poor 
beggars  who  ought  to  be  got  under  ground  as  soon 
as  possible,  to  save  the  cost  of  their  keep.  But  it  is  not 
true  that  most  college  men  build  up  a  wall  between  them- 
selves and  life.     If  this  has  been  true  in  any  individual 

6 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

case,  it  was  because  the  man  was  not  worth  educating 
or  because  the  education  itself  was  spurious.  For 
higher  education  cannot  make  a  man  where  manhood 
did  not  exist  before.  It  can  only  take  a  man  already 
created  and  raise  him  to  higher  efifectiveness.  More- 
over, there  are  frauds  and  imitations  in  education  as 
well  as  anywhere  else,  and  misfit  articles  are  thrown 
on  the  market,  cheap,  every  day.  It  is  said  that  ' '  our 
schools  which  teach  young  people  to  talk  do  not  teach 
them  how  to  live."  If  this  is  true,  it  means  that  some 
schools  are  shams,  not  giving  real  education.  But  it 
is  not  by  mistakes  and  misfits  that  higher  education  is 
to  be  judged.  It  is  by  its  finished  and  adapted  pro- 
duct. In  every  walk  in  life  the  higher  education  works 
to  the  benefit  of  humanity.  The  man  who  knows  one 
thing  well  can  do  it  well.  His  presence  in  life  is  a 
help  to  his  neighbor.  He  does  not  enter  into  compe- 
tition, but  into  elevation.  He  makes  respectable  the 
business  of  living. 

In  a  recent  number  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  Dr. 
William  DeWitt  Hyde  gives  a  striking  account  of 
the  value  of  the  life  work  of  a  single  scholar,  the 
honored  President  of  Harvard : 

' '  No  one  can  begin  to  measure  the  gain  to  civiliza- 
tion and  human  happiness  his  services  have  wrought. 
His  leadership  has  doubled  the  rate  of  educational 
advance  not  in  Harvard  alone,  but  throughout  the 
United  States.  He  has  sought  to  extend  the  helping 
hand  of  sympathy  and  appreciation  to  every  struggling 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 


capacity  in  the  humblest  grammar  grade;  to  stimulate 
it  into  joyous  blossoming  under  the  sunshine  of  con- 
genial studies  throughout  the  secondary  years;  to 
bring  it  to  a  sturdy  and  sound  maturity  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  liberty  in  college  life;  and  finally,  by  stern 
selection  and  thorough  specialization,  to  gather  a  har- 
vest of  experts  in  all  the  higher  walks  of  life,  on  whose 
skill,  knowledge,  integrity,  and  self-sacrifice  their  less 
trained  fellows  can  implicitly  rely  for  higher  instruc- 
tion, professional  counsel,  and  public  leadership.  In 
consequence  of  these  comprehensive  forms,  we  see 
the  first  beginnings  of  a  rational  and  universal  church, 
not  separate  from  existing  sects,  but  permeating  all; 
property  rights  in  all  their  subtle  forms  are  more 
secure  and  well  defined;  hundreds  of  persons  are 
alive  today,  who,  under  physicians  of  inferior  train- 
ing, would  have  died  long  ago;  thousands  of  college 
students  have  had  quickened  within  them  a  keen  intel- 
lectual interest,  an  earnest  spiritual  purpose,  a  '  per- 
sonal power  in  action  under  responsibility,'  who  under 
the  old  regime  would  have  remained  listless  and 
indilTerent;  tens  of  thousands  of  boys  and  girls  in 
secondary  schools  can  expand  their  hearts  and  minds 
with  science  and  history  and  the  languages  of  other 
lands,  who  but  for  President  Eliot  would  have  been 
doomed  to  the  monotonous  treadmill  of  formal  studies 
for  which  they  have  no  aptitude  or  taste;  and,  as  the 
years  go  by,  hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  children 
of  the  poor,  in  the  precious,  tender  years  before  their 

8 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

early  drafting  into  lives  of  drudgery  and  toil,  in  place 
of  the  dry  husks  of  superfluous  arithmetic,  the  thrice- 
threshed  straw  of  unessential  grammar  and  the  innu- 
tritions shells  of  unrememberable  geographical  details, 
will  get  some  brief  glimpse  of  the  wondrous  loveliness 
of  nature  and  her  laws,  some  slight  touch  of  inspira- 
tion from  the  words  and  deeds  of  the  world's  wisest 
and  bravest  men,  to  carry  with  them  as  a  heri- 
tage to  brighten  their  future  humble  homes  and  glad- 
den all  their  afterlives.  In  such  'good  measure, 
pressed  down,  shaken  together,  running  over,'  has 
there  been  given  to  this  great  educational  reformer, 
in  return  for  thirty  years  of  generous  and  steadfast 
service  of  his  university,  his  fellow  men,  his  country 
and  his  God,  what,  in  true  Puritan  simplicity,  he  calls 
'  that  finest  luxury,  to  do  some  perpetual  good  in  the 
world.'" 

Not  long  since  one  of  our  writers  expressed  regret 
at  the  numbers  of  young  men  sent  forth  each  year 
from  the  universities  to  swell  the  educated  proletariat 
of  America.  His  assumption  is  that  each  is  to  scram- 
ble for  his  living,  struggling  with  his  competitors, 
dissatisfied  because  his  ambitions  far  outrun  every 
possible  achievement.  The  very  reverse  of  this  is  the 
fact  in  America,  whatever  may  be  the  case  elsewhere, 
as,  for  instance,  under  the  "bed-ridden  officialism  of 
France. ' '  The  man  of  character  who  is  educated  aright 
with  us  finds  very  soon  his  place  in  the  community. 
Before  he  came  he  may  not  have  been  wanted,  but 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

once  in  his  position,  everybody  seems  looking  for 
him.  The  college  men  of  America  need  no  help  and 
no  pity  from  any  source.  They  can  take  care  of 
themselves  and  they  can  take  care  of  others.  To 
them  as  to  Emerson,  "America  means  opportunity, " 
and  there  are  more  opportunities  today  than  ever 
before  to  the  man  who  is  able  to  grasp  them.  But  to 
grasp  the  greater  opportunities,  the  first  essential  is 
not  to  despise  the  smaller  ones.  An  education  that 
turns  a  man  away  from  any  honest  work,  however 
humble,  that  lies  in  the  line  of  duty,  is  not  sound  edu- 
cation. Thfit  some  education  is  unsound  and  that  some 
men  are  unmanly  in  nowise  shows  that  real  training 
does  not  strengthen  real  men. 

Each  year  makes  higher  demands,  it  is  true. 
There  are  fewer  things  worth  having  to  be  had  for  the 
simple  asking.  This  is  because  the  nation  is  growing 
more  critical.  It  is  beginning  to  demand  fitness,  not 
alone  mere  willingness.  The  opportunities  it  has  to 
offer  are  falling  into  the  hands  of  trained  men,  and 
these  men  demand  still  higher  training  from  those 
who  are  to  be  their  successors. 

A  skilled  engineer  will  not  choose  as  his  assistant 
and  successor  a  man  who  knows  wheels  and  engines 
only  by  rule  of  thumb.  An  educated  chemist  will  not 
make  way  for  a  druggist' s  clerk  ;  nor  a  graduate  of 
West  Point,  for  a  politician's  parasite  whose  military 
training  was  gained  as  elevator  boy  or  as  driver  of  a 
beer  wagon.      Training  counts  alike  in  all  walks  of 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

life,  in  a  democracy  not  less  than  in  an  empire.  As  the 
people  come  to  understand  the  reality  of  knowledge, 
so  will  they  learn  to  appreciate  its  worth. 

Another  very  rich  man  doubted  the  value  of  college 
education;  at  the  same  time  he  placed  the  highest  esti- 
mate on  applied  chemistry,  because  through  the  skill 
of  the  chemist  employed  in  his  steel  manufactory,  he 
laid  the  foundations  of  his  own  wealth.  But  applied 
chemistry  rests  on  the  broader  chemistry  not  yet 
applied,  and  is  a  part  of  higher  knowledge.  To  train 
chemists  is  likewise  a  part  of  the  higher  education. 
Higher  education  consists  no  longer,  as  many  seem  to 
suppose,  in  writing  Latin  verses,  and  reading  mythol- 
ogy in  Greek.  These  things  have  their  place,  and  a 
great  place  in  the  history  of  culture,  but  it  is  to 
' '  Greek-minded  men  and  Roman-minded  men ' '  that 
they  belong.  They  form  no  longer  the  sole  avenue 
by  which  the  goal  of  the  scholar  can  be  reached. 

The  keynote  of  the  modern  university  is  its  use- 
fulness. Its  help  is  no  longer  limited  to  one  kind  of 
man  or  one  kind  of  ability,  cramping  or  excluding  all 
others.  It  welcomes  ' '  every  ray  of  varied  genius  to 
its  hospitable  halls."  It  is  its  highest  pride  that  no 
man  who  brings  to  its  classrooms  brains  and  courage 
is  ever  turned  away  unhelped. 

Because  of  this  broadening  of  university  ideals, 
there  are  ten  college  students  in  our  country  today 
where  there  was  one  twenty  years  ago.  For  this 
reason,  the  same  twenty  years  has  witnessed  a  marvel- 


V 

THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

ous  expansion  in  all  universities  where  generous  ideals 
have  found  lodgment. 

Where  the  old  notion  that  all  culture  runs  in  a 
single  groove,  still  obtains;  where  it  is  attempted  to 
train  all  men  by  one  process,  whatever  this  process  be, 
there  is  no  growth  in  numbers,  no  extension  of  influ- 
ence, no  sign  of  greater  abundance  of  life.  Just  in 
proportion  as  constructive  individualism  in  education 
has  been  a  guiding  principle,  have  our  universities 
grown  in  numbers  and  influence.  In  this  proportion 
and  for  this  reason  have  they  deserved  to  grow.  For 
this  reason  James  Bryce  declares  that  of  all  results  of 
democracy,  the  American  university  offers  the  largest 
promise  for  the  future. 

The  scholar  in  the  true  sense  is  the  man  or  woman 
for  whom  the  schools  ha\-e  done  their  best.  The 
scholar  knows  some  one  thing  thoroughly  and  can 
carry  out  his  knowledge  into  action.  With  this,  he 
must  have  such  knowledge  of  related  subjects  and  of 
human  life  as  will  throw  this  special  knowledge  into 
proper  perspective.  Anything  less  than  this  is  not 
scholarship.  The  man  with  knowledge  and  no  per- 
spective is  a  crank,  a  disturber  of  the  peace,  who  needs 
a  guardian  to  make  his  knowledge  useful.  The  man 
who  has  common  sense,  but  no  special  training,  may 
be  a  fair  citizen,  but  he  can  exert  little  influence  that 
makes  for  progress.  There  may  be  a  wisdom  not  of 
books,  but  it  can  be  won  by  no  easy  process.  To  gain 
wisdom  or  skill,  in  school  or  out,  is  education.     To  do 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

anything  well  requires  special  knowledge,  and  this  is 
scholarship  whether  attained  in  the  university  or  in 
the  school  of  life.  It  is  the  man  who  knows  that  has 
the  right  to  speak. 

That  monarchy  needs  the  university  has  been  rec- 
ognized ever  since  culture  began.  The  universities 
of  Europe  were  founded  by  the  great  kings;  the  wiser 
the  king  the  more  he  felt  the  need  of  scholars  as  his 
helpers.  So  Alfred  founded  Oxford  and  Charlemagne 
the  University  of  Paris,  while  the  founder  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Berlin  well  deserved  the  name  of  ' '  Great, ' ' 
even  though  it  were  for  nothing  else.  In  the  darkest 
days  of  Holland,  William  the  Silent  erected  the  Uni- 
versity of  Leyden.  He  needed  it  in  his  struggle 
against  Spain.  He  needed  it  in  the  warfare  for  inde- 
pendence. A  university  breeds  free  men,  men  whom 
physical  force  cannot  bind. 

But  the  need  of  the  monarchy  for  men  of  high 
culture  and  exact  training  is  less  than  that  of  the 
democracy.  Under  a  monarchy  such  men  must  hold 
office.  In  a  democracy  they  must  hold  the  people. 
They  must  form  fixed  points  in  the  civic  mass,  units 
of  intelligence,  not  to  be  bribed  nor  stampeded. 

The  presence  of  the  king  is  not  the  essential  fea- 
ture of  a  monarchy.  It  is  the  absence  of  the  people. 
Where  the  people  are  not  consulted,  it  is  not  vital  to 
the  government  that  they  be  wise,  nor  even  that  wise 
men  should  be  among  them.  In  fact  they  are  more 
easily    handled    without    this    kind    of    obstruction. 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

Therefore  the  tendency  of  monarchy  is  to  separate 
the  men  from  the  mass,  as  we  may  choose  the  sheep 
from  among  the  goats.  But  in  a  democracy,  those 
who  are  ruled  must  also  rule.  They  have  no  less 
need  of  individual  wisdom,  but  they  must  have  it 
diffused  among  themselves,  not  concentrated  in  a  class 
above.  Nothing  can  be  done  for  a  democracy  save 
what  the  people  do  for  themselves.  It  is  impossible 
to  provide  for  it  an  educated  oligarchy.  Its  public 
servants  are  of  its  own  kind,  its  agents  or  its  attor- 
neys, in  no  sense' its  rulers,  not  often  even  its  leaders. 
For  the  most  part,  therefore,  the  wisest  men  in  the 
democracy  will  not  be  in  office.  The  voice  of  w^isdom 
should  rise  from  the  body  of  the  people  to  the  throne 
of  power.  When  a  democracy  needs  a  leader  in  the 
seat  of  authority,  it  is  because  it  has  gone  out  of  its 
way  in  one  fashion  or  other.  Going  out  of  its  way, 
it  has  come  to  a  crisis.  The  cause  of  every  crisis,  in 
a  democracy,  is  a  mistake  of  one  sort  or  another.  A 
crisis  arises  with  a  question  of  right  and  wrong.  Such 
a  question  never  becomes  a  burning  one  unless  the 
popular  feeling  has  somewhere  gone  wrong  and 
worked  itself  out  in  wrong  action. 

When  this  is  the  case,  it  is  the  scholar's  business  to 
know  it.  He  is  the  sensitive  barometer  which  first  feels 
the  lowered  pressure  of  rejected  duty,  the  first  warn- 
ing of  the  coming  storm.  The  warning  he  gives,  his 
neighbors  will  not  receive  with  favor.  He  will  not 
xeceive  a  * '  donation  party ' '  nor  a  vote  of  thanks,  nor 

14 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

a  new  pair  of  boots  for  giving  it  expression,  but  it  is 
his  business  to  speak  and  he  cannot  remain  a  scholar 
if  he  takes  refuge  in  silence.  Dr.  Norman  Bridge 
has  well  expressed  a  similar  thought  in  these  words: 

"The  mere  fact  that  one  or  two  men  in  a  hundred 
are  known  to  be  uninfluenced  by  the  clamors  of  any 
rabble,  good  or  bad,  is  to  any  community  a  force  of 
unspeakable  value.  The  excitable  ones  know  well  that 
the  fiftieth  man  must  be  met  and  conciliated  or  over- 
come in  any  hot-headed  movement.  He  is  a  factor  as 
a  voter  and  a  citizen  that  cannot  be  ignored,  and  he 
exercises  a  wholesome,  regulating  and  modifying, 
often  repressive  influence  on  the  hasty  tendencies  of 
the  crowd.  The  thieves  of  the  public  treasury,  of  all 
classes  and  shades,  are  afraid  of  him.  Even  one 
forceful  man  in  a  hundred  thousand  may  have  an 
amazing  influence  on  public  affairs  if  he  has  the  time 
and  inclination  to  devote  to  disinterested  care  of  the 
public  interests.  There  are  a  few  such  men  in  each  of 
our  large  cities.  In  one  of  the  large  centers  of  the 
East  a  wealthy  man  of  leisure  was  for  many  years  a 
terror  to  the  hot-headed  and  the  filchers  of  the  public, 
and  solely  because  he  gave  himself  to  the  task,  and 
they  knew  they  would  have  to  meet  him  at  every  turn. 
This  one  man  in  the  multitude  may  be  called  a  croaker 
or  a  fossil,  but  often  he  is  the  sole  force  that  is  able  to 
check  the  rising  of  the  mob  or  the  stampede  of  the 
army,  or  to  compel  men  to  stop  and  think  before 
taking  action  that  may  be  hasty  or  regretable. 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

The  scholar  will  not  go  far  out  of  his  way  in  mat- 
ters of  this  kind.  Because  his  knowledge  is  intense, 
it  must  be  correspondingly  narrow.  The  tendencies 
to  good  and  evdl  in  our  social  condition  are  so  varied 
and  so  intertangled,  that  those  who  trace  out  the  rela- 
tions of  one  set  of  combinations  must  perforce  neglect 
the  others.  The  scholar  who  raises  his  voice  against 
unjust  or  unwise  taxation  may  be  silent  on  the  ques- 
tion of  misapplied  charity.  The  scholar  who  becomes 
an  authority  on  the  purity  of  water  cannot  be  an  equal 
judge  of  the  purity  of  elections.  The  expert  on  elec- 
tricity is  not  necessarily  the  best  judge  of  ghost  stories. 
He  may  be  so,  but  we  cannot  expect  it.  Each  must  do 
his  own  part  in  his  own  way,  in  his  own  section  of  the 
field  of  knowledge.  Each  must  say  his  own  word  as 
his  own  truth  comes  to  him,  though  he  know  that  his 
own  times  let  it  pass  unheeded,  and  though  he  know 
that  his  voice  be  overborne  by  the  louder  tones  of 
mere  pretenders  to  knowledge.  For  it  is  one  of  the 
conditions  of  democracy  that  wisdom  and  its  counter- 
feit go  along  together  side  by  side.  There  can  be  no 
tag  or  label  to  mark  one  from  the  other,  and  the  people 
would  not  heed  them  if  there  were.  We  can  only 
know  wisdom  from  imposture  by  its  results,  or  by  the 
test  of  our  own  wisdom.  The  government  cannot  brand 
a  Keeley  lest  the  public  mistake  him  for  a  Faraday.  A 
Tesla  and  a  Helmholtz  pass  as  alike  great,  and  for  the 
public  he  is  greatest  whose  name  is  oftenest  in  the 
daily  newspapers.     All  this  is  well.     It  is  better  for 

i6 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

men  to  choose  the  voice  of  wisdom  for  themselves 
rather  than  to  have  it  infallibly  pointed  out  to  them 
by  the  government.  For  the  seat  of  wisdom  is  in 
the  individual  soul,  and  it  grows  through  individual 
effort. 

The  scholar  is  silent  for  the  most  part  in  the  rush 
and  hurry  of  the  world.  When  he  has  no  reason  for 
speaking  he  reserves  his  strength  for  his  own  due 
season  and  his  own  line  of  action.  But  he  must  be 
free  to  speak  when  needs  arise.  He  cannot  breathe 
in  confined  air,  and  his  speech  or  his  silence  must  be 
at  his  own  will,  subject  to  his  own  conscience  and  to 
the  demands  of  truth. 

In  our  days  men  talk  too  much,  in  the  papers,  in 
the  magazines,  in  the  open  atmosphere.  They  fill  the 
literary  air  with  vain  shoutings.  But  there  can  never 
be  too  clear  or  too  frequent  statement  of  the  results 
of  real  knowledge.  The  old  elementary  truths  of  jus- 
tice and  humanity  need  to  be  recalled  to  us  day  after 
day,  while  on  the  other  hand  the  discoveries  of  science 
give  us  better  tools  and  surer  command  over  the  forces 
of  nature.  The  voice  of  the  oldest  and  the  newest 
must  together  somehow  reach  our  ears,  if  our  actions 
are  to  be  righteous  and  our  enterprises  successful. 

To  the  scholar  we  must  look  for  this.  Only  he 
who  knows  for  himself  some  truth  which  rests  on  the 
foundations  of  the  Universe  has  a  right  to  the  name  of 
scholar.  And  the  scholar  will  speak  when  the  due  time 
comes  for  speaking.     Whatever  our  creeds  and  con- 

17 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

ventions,  he  will  break  through  them  with  the  truth. 
He  can  never  afford  to  do  less,  if  the  truth  he  utters 
be  really  his  own,  and  the  outcome  of  his  own  contact 
with  the  powers  that  never  lie.  No  authority  can  bend 
him  to  silence  ;  no  title  can  bribe  him ;  no  force  can 
close  his  mouth.  He  must,  if  need  be,  have  the  spirit 
of  the  martyr.  He  must  consider,  not  the  conse- 
quences to  himself,  to  his  business,  to  society, —  only 
the  demands  of  truth. 

That  the  scholar  must  speak,  again  emphasizes  his 
need  of  common  sense.  Common  sense  is  that  instinct 
which  throws  all  knowledge  into  right  perspective.  It 
rests  on  sound  habits  of  orientation.  He  who  knows 
where  the  sun  rises  never  fails  to  make  out  all  the 
other  points  of  the  compass.  This  power  the  schools 
alone  cannot  give.  They  can  strengthen  it,  but  they 
cannot  create  it,  and  they  must  not  take  it  away.  It 
is  the  foundation  of  all  true  culture,  for  science  is  only 
enlightened  common  sense. 

As  a  part  of  common  sense,  the  scholar  must  dis- 
tinguish his  truth  from  his  opinions.  He  must  not 
mistake  for  the  eternal  verity  his  own  prejudice,  his 
own  ambition,  or  his  own  desire.  For  he  is  human  on 
all  his  human  sides  and  is  subject  to  temptations  that 
master  other  men.  He  is  in  better  form  to  resist,  no 
doubt,  but  that  does  not  insure  immunity.  Moreover, 
his  truth  may  be  only  half  truth  at  the  best,  and  the 
other  half  truths  may  seem  to  contradict  it.  To  know 
a  half  truth  from  a  whole  one  is  the  part  of  common 

i8 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

sense.  But  common  sense  is  a  possession  still  more  rare 
than  learning.  When  scholars  forget,  their  voices 
arise  in  discord,  and  this  discord  casts  discredit  over 
knowledge.  When  half  truths  are  set  off  one  against 
another,  we  may  find  displayed  all  the  vulgarity  of 
intolerance  in  quarters  where  intolerance  should  be 
unknown.  All  this  should  teach  the  scholar  modesty. 
It  should  warn  him  of  the  need  of  charity,  but  it 
should  not  silence  his  voice. 

He  must  speak,  he  will  speak,  and  it  is  for  the 
safety  of  democracy  that  sooner  or  later  his  word  is 
triumphant.  The  final  outcome  of  all  action  rests  with 
the  educated  man.  Not  all  the  politicians  of  all  the 
parties  in  all  the  republics  have  secured  so  many  final 
victories  in  thought  and  action  as  the  universities. 

I  read  lately  of  an  attempt  to  show  that  the  scholar 
or  the  clergyman  should  never  write  or  speak  on  any 
public  or  passing  question  lest  he  expose  himself 
to  criticism  or  find  his  personality  tumbled  about  in 
the  dust  of  the  political  arena.  The  clergyman 
devotes  his  life  to  the  study  of  moral  questions  in  the 
light  of  religion.  The  scholar  devotes  himself  to 
the  study  of  truth  wherever  found  and  of  the  ways 
by  which  truth  may  be  available  to  men.  If  the 
scholar  and  the  clergyman  are  to  be  silent  on  ques- 
tions of  vital  interest  to  men,  who  indeed  is  to 
speak?  Is  it  the  politician  of  the  day,  a  mere 
echo  without  an  idea  of  his  own  ?  Is  it  the  man  of 
money,  who  may  have  an  axe  to  grind  in  every  move- 

'9 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

ment  in  public  affairs,  or  who  again  may  be  seeking 
undisturbed  possession  of  that  which  justice  would 
place  in  other  hands?  Is  it  the  popular  agitator  to 
whom  the  social  order  is  one  long  fit  of  hysteria? 
Must  we  confine  all  public  utterance  to  those  whose 
passions  are  excited  or  whose  interests  are  touched  ? 
Shall  Emerson  and  Lowell,  Theodore  Parker  and 
Phillips  Brooks  be  silent  when  the  fighting  editor 
speaks  ? 

The  scholar  should  be  above  all  influences  of  pas- 
sion or  profit.  He  should  speak  for  the  clear,  hard, 
unyielding,  unflattering,  unpitying  truth.  If  he  enters 
the  arena,  he  must  as  a  man  take  his  chances  with  the 
rest.  His  thoughts  must  be  his  only  weapon.  Passion, 
rhetoric,  satire,  these  are  arms  for  weaker  men  to  use, 
not  for  the  scholar.  His  only  sword  is  the  truth. 
His  personal  credentials  may  be  challenged.  He  will 
meet  the  scorn  of  men  who  do  not  know  the  truth 
when  they  see  it,  and  to  whom  thought  seems  but  a 
puny  weapon.  More  than  this,  he  will  meet  as  adver- 
saries scholars,  real  or  pretended,  men  who  see  the 
truth  from  a  single  side,  or  who  have  never  seen  it  at 
all,  yet  feign  to  be  its  defenders. 

As  to  all  this,  the  scholar  must  be  patient.  If  he 
is  right,  the  ages  will  find  him  out.  If  he  is  wrong, 
the  fault  is  with  his  own  weakness,  not  with  truth.  He 
must  be  loyal  to  the  best  he  knows,  caring  no  more 
for  majorities  than  the  stars  do,  unshaken  by  feeling, 
by  tradition,  or  by  fear.      The  voice  of  the  clamorous 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

mob  on  the  one  hand  is  no  more  to  him  than  the 
dictum  of  a  pope  or  a  king,  or  all  antiquity.  Nor  is 
it  less ;  for  one  or  all  of  these  are  matters  not  to  be 
taken  in  evidence  when  the  scholar  makes  his  final 
decision. 

The  rabble  of  today  which  the  scholar  has  to  face  is 
not  the  rabble  of  yesterday.  The  axe  and  the  fagot, 
the  club  and  the  paving  stone  have  as  means  of  argu- 
ment gone  out  of  date.  The  weapon  of  the  mob  of 
today  is  mud.  When  a  scholar  stands  for  unwelcome 
truth,  the  answer  of  the  day  is  personal  abuse.  To  a 
man  the  rabble  cannot  understand  are  ascribed  all  the 
vulgar  motives  of  the  rabble.  His  words  and  his 
teachings  are  distorted  and  vulgarized  until  the  multi- 
tude recognize  them  as  brought  down  to  their  own 
level. 

In  this  gloomy  outlook,  the  scholar  has  two  facts 
of  consolation.  Truth  is  a  statue  to  which  mud  can 
never  stick.  The  man  without  brains  is  the  man  with- 
out influence.  A  little  patience  and  the  human  storm 
will  pass  by,  the  atmosphere  will  clear,  and  again,  with 
Emerson,  the  scholar  shall  behold  above  him  "the 
gods  sitting  alone  on  their  thrones ;  they  alone  and  he 
alone. ' ' 

The  university  is  an  association  of  scholars.  It 
stands  for  the  free  judgment  and  the  free  proclamation 
of  truth  ;  without  these  it  can  stand  for  nothing  else. 
But  our  idea  of  academic  freedom  must  be  cast  on 
broad   lines.      It   is   the  prerogative  of   high-minded 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

men,  men  of  sound  life  and  mature  character,  who 
should  deal  with  large  issues  sanely  and  seriously. 
We  may  not  dignify  by  the  name  of  freedom  the  boy' s 
play  of  scholarship  or  the  issues  of  the  debating  soci- 
ety. The  privilege  of  college  instructors  to  use  the 
academic  halls  as  a  safe  shelter  in  which  to  spin 
social  cobwebs,  or  from  which  to  throw  epithets  at 
tradesmen  or  corporations,  at  churches  or  politicians, 
is  now  in  some  quarters  called  academic  freedom.  By 
some  this  is  held  to  be  the  noblest  privilege  of  the 
scholar.  It  may  indeed  be  something  worth  striving 
for,  but  it  is  not  the  freedom  for  which  our  academic 
fathers  fought.  The  right  to  say  anything  anywhere, 
to  any  audience,  without  regard  to  fitness,  truth  or 
justice,  is  not  a  right  of  the  real  scholar  in  the  real 
university.  It  savors  rather  of  the  yellow  journalism. 
When  unseemly  things  are  done  or  done  on  un- 
seemly occasions,  they  must  be  judged  by  society's 
laws  of  fitness,  not  by  any  artificial  code  of  the 
academy. 

"When  serious  people,"  says  Francis  F.  Browne, 
' '  set  themselves  to  discussing  the  principle  of  Lehr- 
freiheit,  they  are  thinking  of  something  very  differ- 
ent. They  are  thinking  of  the  deliberate  attempts 
of  obscurantist  and  reactionary  authorities  to  stifle  in- 
tellectual endeavor,  and  to  impede  the  progress  of  great 
creative  ideas  that  from  time  to  time  transform  our 
modes  of  thought.  They  are  thinking  of  such  things 
as  the  occasional  official  efforts  made  in  Germany  dur- 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

ing  the  last  century  to  force  all  university  teaching  into 
conformity  with  the  ideas  of  the  monarchy  and  the 
established  church.  They  are  thinking  of  such  things 
as  the  effort,  made  so  energetically  in  the  generation 
just  preceding  our  own,  to  deny  a  hearing  to  the  doc- 
trine of  evolution,  and  to  discourage  its  promulgation 
in  the  recognized  institutions  of  learning.  They  are 
thinking  of  all  sorts  of  attempts  to  influence  or  cajole 
or  threaten  thinkers  of  achieved  reputation,  in  order 
that  the  fabric  of  conventional  falsehood  may  not  be 
undermined  and  totter  to  its  fall.  *  *  H^  It  is 
when  we  try  to  imagine  a  case  of  this  sort  that  we 
come  fully  to  understand  how  securely  the  principle 
of  Lehrfreiheit  is  guarded  by  the  authorities  of  our 
great  universities,  and  how  certainly,  should  they  once 
fail  in  their  trust,  would  they  be  forced  back  into  the 
path  of  duty  by  the  overwhelming  pressure  of  public 
opinion." 

Academic  freedom  therefore  demands  personal  re- 
sponsibility. There  must  be  degrees  in  this  as  well  as 
in  other  sorts  of  freedom.  We  say  sometimes  that 
certain  men  have  the  right  to  be  heard.  But  one  thing 
gives  this  right,  and  that  is  the  value  of  what  they 
have  to  say.  This  may  be  judged  by  the  soundness 
of  their  lives  and  the  breadth  of  their  previous  expe- 
riences. There  can  never  be  perfect  freedom  for 
children  or  for  fools.  On  the  same  principle,  the 
academic  freedom  of  the  college  professor  is  a  thing 
that  must  be  won  by  merit,  not  claimed  as  a  privilege. 

23 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

The  right  to  proclaim  truth  belongs  to  him  who  has 
shown  that  he  knows  truth  when  he  sees  her,  and  that 
he  knows  how  to  find  her  when  he  does  not  see  her. 
It  cannot  exist  in  full  degree  for  men  without  experi- 
ence in  life,  for  men  who  live  in  a  visionary  world,  for 
men  whose  ready  eloquence  takes  the  place  of  science. 
The  doctors  of  philosophy  turned  out  in  such  num- 
bers from  the  great  hot-houses  of  university  culture 
are  not  always  prepared  for  the  freedom  a  grown  man 
must  take.  Their  fitness  to  speak  usually  dates  from 
the  period  in  which  they  make  the  discovery  that  they 
are  not  yet  ready.  It  is  not  the  fear  of  the  public,  of 
the  press,  of  the  rich  or  of  the  poor,  that  should  deter 
a  young  man  from  rash  speaking.  It  is  the  fear  that 
he  may  not  tell  the  truth,  the  fear  that  he  may  mislead 
others  or  bring  reproach  on  himself  or  his  colleagues 
by  vmdue  proclamation  of  his  own  crudity.  The  uni- 
versities of  the  world  have  shown  that  they  fear  neither 
man  nor  devil,  if  a  struggle  for  principle  is  on.  But 
this  they  do  fear,  that  in  the  multiplicity  of  speech  and 
writing  for  which  they  are  held  responsible,  the  truth 
shall  be  lost  in  the  heat  of  controversy  or  concealed  in 
meshes  of  eloquence. 

The  university  must  stand  for  infinite  patience  and 
the  calm  discussion  of  the  ideas  and  ideals  which  it 
must  leave  to  men  of  action  to  frame  into  deeds.  The 
passionate  appeal  is  not  part  of  its  function.  In  order 
that  politics  shall  not  creep  into  the  university,  the 
men  of  the  university  must  try  not  to  creep  into  poU- 

24 


THE    VOICE    OF    THE    SCHOLAR 

tics.  It  is  not  because  the  university  is  afraid  of  re- 
prisals. The  politicians  cannot  hurt  it  much.  It  is 
because  the  university  fears  degeneration  within  itself 
if  its  energies  are  occupied  with  temporary  ends.  There 
can  be  no  greater  foe  to  academic  existence,  and  there- 
fore to  academic  freedom  than  the  professor  who 
makes  his  chair  a  center  of  propaganda  of  personal 
opinions.  Whether  these  are  right  or  wrong,  popular 
or  unpopular,  makes  little  difference.  The  effect  is  the 
same.  The  appeal  is  to  prejudice  and  takes  the  place 
of  investigation.  The  function  of  the  university  in 
public  affairs  must  always  be  essentially  judicial.  This 
does  not  mean  that  the  scholar's  voice  should  be  silent 
in  times  of  moral  issues.  It  is  now  and  then  the 
scholar's  sworn  duty  to  take  the  great  bull  of  public 
opinion  by  the  horns,  regardless  of  results  to  himself 
or  to  the  association  of  scholars  he  represents.  All 
honor  to  the  scholar  who  recognizes  the  moment  of 
great  decision  and  seizes  it,  sparing  neither  himself  nor 
others.  ' '  Once  to  every  man  and  nation  comes  the 
moment  to  decide."  But  such  moments  are  not 
matters  of  every  day,  and  the  small  battles  of  society 
must  be  fought  by  men  of  action  who  enroll  them- 
selves under  banners  which  flutter  for  the  hour. 


^S 


11. 

THE    BUILDING    OF    A 
UNIVERSITY. 

WITH  the  end  of  our  Republic's  first  century 
we  had  the  first  clear  vision  of  the  greatest 
of  republican  institutions  —  the  American 
university.  It  was  even  then  only  a 
vision.  It  is  not  yet  realized,  but  we  know  something 
of  what  it  is  to  be.  Out  of  the  struggles  and  the 
prayers,  the  hopes  and  the  efforts  of  good  men  and 
good  women,  we  see  it  taking  form.  A  university  as 
fair  as  those  which  England  has  known  for  a  thousand 
years,  as  sound  and  as  strong  as  the  deep-rooted 
schools  of  Germany,  with  something  of  both,  yet 
different  from  either,  is  the  coming  university  of 
America.  There  will  be  many  of  these  institutions, 
for  our  land  is  very  wide,  and  they  will  differ  from 
each  other  somewhat  in  kind,  and  as  one  star  differeth 
from  another  in  glory, — still  of  the  same  general 
pattern  all  must  be.  They  will  be  schools  for  training 
American  boys  and  girls  to  be  American  men  and 
women.  They  will  express  the  loftiest  ideals  of  higher 
education  within  our  great  democracy.  One  of  this 
great  sisterhood  of  universities  our  own  Stanford  must 

a6 


THE    BUILDING    OF    A    UNIVERSITY 

become;   hence  it  is  fitting  for  us,  from  time  to  time, 
to  consider  the  present,  and  to  forecast  the  future. 

The  American  college,  as  it  existed  thirty  years 
ago  and  more,  and  as  it  still  exists  in  some  quarters,  is 
distinctly  a  school  for  personal  culture.  Its  strongest 
agency  has  been  the  personal  influence  of  devoted 
men.  It  has  made  no  effort  to  give  professional  train- 
ing. It  has  made  no  pretense  of  leading  in  scientific 
research.  A  log  with  Mark  Hopkins  at  one  end  of  it 
and  himself  at  the  other  was  Garfield's  conception  of 
such  a  college.  Even  the  log  is  not  essential.  The 
earnest  teacher  is  all  in  all.  Apparatus  Mark  Hop- 
kins did  not  need,  books  he  even  despised.  The 
medium  of  a  forgotten  language  and  an  outworn  phil- 
osophy served  him  as  well  as  anything  else  in  impress- 
ing on  his  boys  the  stamp  of  his  own  character.  It 
was  said  of  Dr.  Nott  of  Union  College  that  "  He  took 
the  sweepings  of  other  colleges  and  sent  them  back  to 
society  pure  gold."  Such  was  his  personal  influence 
on  young  men.  A  notable  example  of  the  college 
spirit  was  Arnold  of  Rugby.  Another  was  Jowett, 
Master  of  Baliol.  A  teacher  of  this  type,  in  greater 
or  less  degree,  it  was  the  privilege  of  every  college 
student  to  know,  and  this  knowledge  still  reconciles 
him  to  his  alma  mater,  however  many  her  shortcom- 
ings in  subject  or  method.  But  times  have  changed 
since  the  days  of  Mark  Hopkins.  The  American 
college  —  English -born  and  English  in  tradition  — 
under    the    touch    of    German    influences,     and    in 


THE    BUILDING    OF    A    UNIVERSITY 

response  to  actual  needs,  is  changing  to  the  American 
university.  It  is  no  longer  a  school  of  culture  alone, 
a  school  of  personal  growth  through  personal  example. 
It  is  becoming,  in  addition  to  this,  a  school  of  research, 
a  school  of  power.  It  stands  in  the  advance  guard  of 
civilization,  responsive  not  to  the  truth  of  tradition 
alone  but  to  the  new  truth  daily  and  hourly  revealed 
in  the  experience  of  man. 

In  the  movement  of  events  the  American  university 
unites  in  itself  three  different  functions  :  that  of  the 
college,  that  of  the  professional  school,  and  that  which 
is  distinctive  of  the  university. 

The  college  is  now,  as  ever,  a  school  of  culture. 
It  aims  to  make  wise,  sane,  well-rounded  men  who 
know  something  of  the  best  that  men  have  thought 
and  done  in  this  world,  and  whose  lives  will  be  the 
better  for  this  knowledge.  It  has  not  discarded  the 
Latin,  Greek  and  Mathematics  which  were  so  long  the 
chief  agents  in  culture,  but  it  has  greatly  added  to  this 
list.  It  has  found  that  to  some  minds,  at  least,  better 
results  arise  from  the  study  of  other  things.  Culture 
is  born  from  mastery.  The  mind  is  strengthened  by 
what  it  can  assimilate.  It  can  use  only  that  which 
relates  itself  to  life.  We  find  that  Greek-niindedness 
is  necessary  to  receive  from  the  Greek  all  that  this 
noblest  of  languages  is  competent  to  give.  We  find 
for  the  average  man  better  educational  substance  in 
English  than  in  Latin,  in  the  Physical  or  Natural 
Sciences  than  in  the  Calculus.      But  more  important 

z8 


THE    BUILDING    OF    A    UNIVERSITY 

than  this,  we  find  that  it  is  safe  in  the  main  to  trust 
the  choice  of  studies  to  the  student  himself.  The 
verj''  fact  of  choice  is  in  itself  an  education.  It  is 
better  to  choose  wrong,  sometimes,  as  we  do  a  hundred 
times  in  life,  than  to  be  arbitrarily  directed  to  the  best 
selection.  Moreover,  so  far  as  culture  is  concerned, 
the  best  teacher  is  more  important  than  the  best  study. 
It  is  still  true,  as  Emerson  once  wrote  to  his  daughter, 
that  ' '  It  matters  little  what  your  studies  are  ;  it  all 
lies  in  who  your  teacher  is. "  A  large  institution  has 
many  students.  It  has  likewise  many  teachers  ;  and 
an  Arnold  or  a  Hopkins,  a  Warner,  a  Thoburn  or  a 
Richardson,  can  come  just  as  close  to  the  students' 
hearts  in  a  large  school  as  in  a  small  one.  But  ' '  the 
knowing  of  men  by  name, ' '  the  care  for  their  personal 
lives  and  characters,  must  be  the  essential  element  in 
the  new  college  course,  as  it  was  in  the  old.  And  the 
college  function  of  the  university  must  not  be  despised 
or  belittled.  Because  Germany  has  no  colleges,  because 
her  students  go  directly  from  the  high  school  at  home 
to  the  professional  school  or  the  university,  some 
have  urged  the  abandonment  by  the  American  uni- 
versity of  this  primal  function  of  general  culture.  In 
their  eagerness  to  develop  the  advanced  work  some 
institutions  have  relegated  the  college  function  almost 
solely  to  tutors  without  experience,  and  have  left  it 
without  standards  and  without  serious  purpose.  It  is 
not  right  that  even  the  freshmen  should  be  poorly 
taught.     On   the   soundness  of  the  college    training 

29 


V 


M 

THE    BUILDING    OF    A    UNIVERSITY 

everything  else  must  depend.  In  the  long  run  the 
greatest  university  will  be  the  one  that  devotes  the 
most  care  to  its  undergraduates.  With  the  college 
graduation  higher  education  in  England  mostly  stops. 
With  Germany  here  the  higher  education  begins. 
Higher  education  has  been  defined  as  that  training 
which  demands  that  a  man  should  leave  home.  It 
means  a  breaking  of  the  leading  strings.  It  means 
the  entrance  to  another  atmosphere.  The  high  school 
and  the  gymnasium  cannot  have  the  academic  atmos- 
phere, however  advanced  their  studies  may  be.  They 
must  reflect  the  spirit  of  the  town  which  supports  them, 
and  of  which  they  are  necessarily  a  part.  They  cannot 
be  free  in  the  sense  in  which  the  universities  are  free. 
A  boy  who  lives  at  home  in  a  city,  and  goes  back  and 
forth  on  a  train,  cannot  be  a  university  student.  He 
may  recite  in  the  university  classes,  but  there  his  rela- 
tion ends.  He  gets  little  of  the  spirit  which  moves 
outside  of  the  classroom.  He  cannot  enter  the  uni- 
versity until  he  breathes  the  university  atmosphere. 
The  ' '  Spurstudenten, "  or  "  railway  students, ' '  those 
who  come  and  go  on  the  trains,  are  rightly  held  by 
their  fellows  in  Germany  to  be  little  more  than  Philis- 
tines. Whatever  the  other  excellencies  of  the  German 
system,  the  gymnasium,  or  advanced  high  school,  is 
an  inadequate  substitute  for  the  American  college. 

The  second  function  of  the  university  is  that  of 
professional  training.  To  the  man  once  in  the  path  of 
culture  this  school  adds  effectiveness  in   his   chosen 

30 


THE    BUILDING    OF    A    UNIVERSITY 

calling.  This  work  the  American  universities  have 
taken  up  slowly  and  grudgingly.  The  demand  for 
instruction  in  law  and  medicine  has  been  met  weakly 
but  extensively  by  private  enterprise.  The  schools 
thus  founded  have  been  dependent  on  the  students' 
fees,  and  on  the  advertising  gain  their  teachers  receive 
through  connection  with  them.  Such  schools  as  these 
stand  no  comparison  with  the  professional  schools  of 
Germany.  Their  foundation  is  precarious,  they  can- 
not demand  high  standards,  nor  look  beyond  present 
necessities  to  the  future  of  professional  training.  Only 
a  few  of  our  professional  schools  today  demand  uni- 
versity standards.  Those  which  do  not  cannot  share 
the  university  spirit.  They  have  no  part  in  university 
development.  Only  in  the  degree  that  they  are  part 
and  parcel  of  the  university  do  they  in  general  deserve 
to  live.  The  first  profession  to  become  thus  allied  is 
that  of  engineering,  thanks  to  the  wisdom  that  directed 
the  Morrill  Act.  Following  this,  law,  medicine,  the- 
ology, education,  have,  in  some  quarters,  taken  a 
university  basis,  and  the  few  professional  schools  in 
which  such  a  basis  exists  rank  fairly  with  the  best  of 
their  class  in  the  world. 

The  crowning  function  of  a  university  is  that  of 
original  research.  On  this  rests  the  advance  of  civil- 
ization. From  the  application  of  scientific  knowledge 
most  of  the  successes  of  the  nineteenth  century  have 
arisen.  It  is  the  first  era  of  science.  Behind  the 
application  of  such  knowledge  rests  the  acquisition  of 

3' 


THE    BUILDING    OF    A    UNIVERSITY 


it.  One  Helmholtz,  the  investigator,  is  the  parent  of  a 
thousand  Edisons,  the  adapters  of  the  knowledge 
gained  by  others.  The  great  function  of  the  German 
university  is  that  of  instruction  through  investigation. 
The  student  begins  his  work  on  a  narrow  space  at  the 
outer  rim  of  knowledge.  It  is  his  duty  to  carry  the 
solid  ground  a  little  farther,  to  drive  back,  ever  so 
little  it  may  be,  the  darkness  of  ignorance  and  mys- 
tery. The  real  university  is  a  school  of  research. 
That  we  possess  the  university  spirit  is  our  only  excuse 
that  we  adopt  the  university  name.  A  true  univer- 
sity is  not  a  collection  of  colleges.  It  is  not  a  college 
with  an  outer  fringe  of  professional  schools.  It  is  not 
a  cluster  of  professional  schools.  It  is  the  association 
of  scholars.  It  is  the  institution  from  which  in  every 
direction  blazes  the  light  of  original  research.  Its 
choicest  product  is  ' '  that  fanaticism  for  veracity, ' '  as 
Huxley  calls  it,  that  love  for  truth,  without  which  man 
is  but  the  toy  of  the  elements.  Its  spirit  is  the  desire 
' '  to  know  things  as  they  really  are, ' '  which  is  the 
necessary  attribute  of  ' '  him  that  overcometh. ' '  No 
institution  can  be  college,  professional  school  and  uni- 
versity all  in  one,  and  exercise  all  these  functions  fully 
in  the  four  years  which  form  the  traditional  college 
course.  To  attempt  it  is  to  fail  in  one  way  or  another. 
We  do  attempt  it  and  we  do  fail.  In  the  engi- 
neering courses  of  today  we  try  to  combine  in  four 
years  professional  training  with  research  and  culture. 
This  cannot  be  done,  for  while  the  professional  work 


THE    BUILDING    OF    A    UNIVERSITY 


is  reasonably  complete,  culture  is  at  a  minimum,  and 
research  crowded  to  the  wall.  The  subject  of  law 
requires  three  solid  years  for  professional  training 
alone.  Three  or  four  culture  years  go  with  this, 
and  are  surely  none  too  many.  The  same  require- 
ment must  soon  be  made  in  engineering.  We  cannot 
make  an  engineer  in  four  years  if  we  do  anything 
else  for  him,  and  there  are  very  many  things 
besides  engineering  which  go  to  the  making  of  a  real 
engineer. 

But  this  we  can  do  in  the  four  years  of  college 
culture:  We  can  show  the  student  the  line  of  his 
professional  advancement,  and  can  see  him  well  started 
in  its  direction  before  he  has  taken  his  first  degree. 
We  can  give  in  the  college  course  something  of  the 
methods  and  results  of  advanced  research.  In  any 
subject  the  advanced  work  has  a  higher  culture  value 
than  elementary  work.  Thorough  study  of  one  sub- 
ject is  more  helpful  than  superficial  knowledge  of  half 
a  dozen.  To  know  one  thing  well  is,  in  Agassiz's 
words,  "to  have  the  backbone  of  culture."  By  lim- 
iting the  range  of  individual  training  to  a  few  things 
done  thoroughly  it  is  possible  to  give  even  to  the 
undergraduate  some  touch  of  real  university  method, 
some  knowledge  of  how  truth  is  won.  To  accomplish 
this  is  one  vital  part  of  the  university's  duty.  It 
welds  together  the  three  functions  of  a  university,  and 
in  so  doing  it  will  give  the  American  university  its 
most  characteristic  feature. 

33 


THE    BUILDING    OF    AUNIVERSITY 

The  best  education  for  any  man  with  brains  and 
character  should  involve  these  three  elements: 

It  should  have  the  final  goal  in  view  as  soon  as 
possible. 

It  should  be  broad  enough  and  thorough  enough  to 
develop  cultured  manhood,  and  at  the  same  time  to 
furnish  the  strength  needed  to  reach  this  goal.  In 
other  words,  it  should  look  to  success  in  the  profession 
and  to  success  as  a  man.  Toward  both  these  ends  the 
methods  of  finding  the  truth  for  one's  self  are  vitally 
essential.  The  university  should  disclose  the  secret 
of  power,  and  this  secret  lies  in  thoroughness.  Science 
is  human  experience  tested  and  set  in  order.  The 
advance  of  science  has  come  through  the  use  of  instru- 
ments of  precision  and  methods  of  precision.  Opinion, 
feeling,  tradition,  plausibility,  illusions  of  whatever 
sort,  disappear  when  the  method  of  power  is  once 
mastered. 

The  college  course  should  have  a  little  of  the  pro- 
fessional spirit  for  its  guidance,  a  little  of  the  university 
spirit  for  its  inspiration;  the  best  interests  of  all  three 
will  keep  them  in  the  closest  relation  to  each  other. 
At  the  same  time  they  must  not  starve  each  other. 
At  the  present  time  the  needs  of  the  college  in  most 
cases  tend  to  dwarf  the  more  costly  functions  of  the 
university.  The  professors  have  their  hands  full  of 
lower  work.  The  books  and  material  the  university 
work  demand  are  far  more  costly  than  the  college  can 
afford.     The  trustees  still  too  often  regard  the  graduate 

34 


THE    BUILDING    OF    A    UNIVERSITY 

school  as  an  expensive  alien,  and  its  demands  in  most 
quarters  still  receive  scant  attention.  To  train  fifty 
investigators  costs  more  than  to  give  a  thousand  men 
a  college  education.  The  sciences  cost  more  than 
the  humanities,  and  the  applied  sciences,  with  their 
vast  and  changing  array  of  machinery,  are  most  ex- 
pensive of  all. 

Equally  unwise,  it  seems  to  me,  though  less  com- 
mon, is  the  disposition  to  slight  the  college  course  for 
the  sake  of  advanced  research.  Poor  work,  wherever 
done,  leaves  its  mark  of  poverty.  The  great  univer- 
sity of  the  future  will  be  the  one  which  does  well 
whatever  it  undertakes,  be  it  high  or  low.  Better 
have  few  departments,  very  few,  than  that  any  should 
be  weak  and  paltry.  Better  a  few  students  well  taught 
than  many  neglected. 

It  is  fair  to  judge  a  university  by  the  character  of 
its  advanced  work.  Institutions  cannot  be  graded  by 
the  number  in  attendance.  This  is  the  most  frequent 
and  most  vulgar  gage  of  relative  standing.  The  rank 
of  an  institution  is  determined  no  more  by  the  number 
of  its  students  than  by  the  number  of  trees  on  its 
campus.  What  sort  of  men  does  it  have,  and  what 
are  they  doing?  These  are  the  living  questions 
Buildings  are  convenient;  beautiful  buildings  have  a 
great  culture  value.  We  should  be  the  last  to  under- 
rate the  effect  of  the  charm  of  cloisters  and  towers, 
of  circles  of  palms  and  sweet-toned  bells.  But  these 
do  not  make  a  university.      Books  are  useful,  they  are 


THE    BUILDING    OF    A    UNIVERSITY 

vital  to  research, — but  wiser  men  than  we  have  ever 
known  have  grown  up  without  books.  Shakspere 
had  few  of  them,  Lincohi  but  few.  Homer  and  Jesus 
none  at  all.  Books  serve  no  purpose  if  they  are  not 
used.  The  man  who  reads  it  gives  the  book  its  life. 
Specimens  are  inevitable  in  natural  history.  Appa- 
ratus is  necessary  in  physical  science.  Collections  and 
equipment  are  really  the  outgrowth  of  the  men  that 
use  them.  You  cannot  order  them  in  advance.  Pro- 
fessor Haeckel  once  said,  bitterly,  that  the  results  of 
research  in  the  great  laboratories  were  in  inverse  pro- 
portion to  the  perfection  of  their  appliances.  An 
investigation  may  be  lost  in  multiplicity  of  details,  or 
in  elaboration  of  preparation.  Some  men  will  spend 
years  in  getting  a  microscope  or  a  microtome  just 
right,  and  then  never  use  it.  It  is  said  that  the  entire 
outfit  of  Joseph  Leidy,  one  of  the  greatest  of  our 
microscopists,  cost  just  seventy-five  dollars.  It  was 
the  man  and  not  the  equipment  that  made  his  investi- 
gations luminous. 

Publication  is  necessary,  but  it  would  be  the  great- 
est of  mistakes  to  measure  a  university  by  the  number 
of  pages  printed  by  its  members.  Much  of  the  so- 
called  research,  even  in  Germany,  is  unworthy  of  the 
name  of  science.  Its  subject  matter  is  not  extension 
of  human  experience,  but  the  addition  to  human 
pedantry.  To  count  the  twists  and  turns  of  literary 
eccentricity  may  have  no  more  intellectual  signifi- 
cance than  to  count  the  dead  leaves  in  the  forest. 

36 


THE    BUILDING    OF    A    UNIVERSITY 

Statistical  work  is  justified  not  by  the  labor  it  requires, 
but  by  the  laws  it  unveils.  Elaboration  of  method 
may  conceal  the  dearth  of  purpose.  Moreover,  it  is 
easier  to  string  the  web  of  plausibility  than  to  recover 
the  lost  clue  of  truth.  Of  a  thousand  doctors'  theses 
each  year,  scarcely  one  in  a  hundred  contains  a  real 
addition  to  knowledge.  When  it  does  it  may  be  that 
the  hand  of  the  master  placed  it  there.  In  too  many 
cases  a  piece  of  research  is  simply  a  bid  for  notice. 
American  universities  are  always  on  the  watch  for  men 
who  can  do  something  as  it  should  be  done.  Work 
is  often  done  solely  to  arrest  the  attention  of  the  uni- 
versity authorities.  A  professorship  once  gained, 
nothing  more  is  heard  of  research.  The  love  of  nov- 
elty with  the  itch  for  writing  often  passes  for  the 
power  of  original  research.  The  fanaticism  for  verac- 
ity has  nothing  in  common  with  versatile  writing  or 
paradoxical  cleverness.  It  took  Darwin  twenty-five 
years  of  the  severest  work  before  he  could  get  his  own 
leave  to  print  his  own  conclusions.  Other  writers  put 
forth  sweeping  generalizations  as  rapidly  as  their  type- 
writers can  take  them  from  dictation.  In  certain 
works  which  have  arrested  popular  attention,  the 
investigations  must  have  gone  on  at  the  highest  speed 
attainable  by  the  pen  of  the  gifted  author.  Such  work 
justifies  Fechner's  sarcastic  phrase,  "Cuckoos'  eggs 
laid  in  the  nest  of  science." 

The  work  of  science  is  addressed  to  science,  no 
matter  if  half  a  dozen  generations  pass  before  another 

37 


THE    BUILDING    OF    A    UNIVERSITY 

investigator  takes  up  the  thread.  The  science  of  the 
newspapers  is  of  quite  another  type,  and  so  is  much 
of  the  science  of  just  now  famous  men  from  whom 
newspaper  science  derives  its  inspiration. 

While  the  university  on  its  human  side  is  inter- 
ested in  all  that  touches  the  life  of  today,  on  the 
scientific  side  it  deals  with  the  eternal  verities,  and 
cares  nothing  for  those  things  which  are  merely  local 
or  timely. 

The  university  must  conduct  research  to  ends  of 
power.  This  it  has  hardly  begun  to  do  in  America. 
Half  our  graduate  students  are  not  ready  for  anything 
worthy  to  be  called  investigation.  They  are  not  real 
students  of  a  real  university.  The  graduate  depart- 
ments of  our  universities  are  now  engaged  almost 
exclusively  in  training  teachers.  That  profession  may 
be  the  noblest  —  where  noble  men  make  it  so,  but  it  is 
only  one  of  many  in  which  success  must  rest  on  orig- 
mal  investigation.  We  are  proud  of  our  crop  of 
Doctors  of  Philosophy,  dozens  or  hundreds  turned 
out  every  year.  But  most  of  them  are  trained  only 
to  teach,  and  we  know  that  half  of  them  are  predes- 
tined to  failure  as  college  teachers.  We  must  broaden 
our  work  and  widen  our  sympathies.  We  must  train 
men  in  the  higher  effectiveness  in  every  walk  in  life, 
men  of  business  as  well  as  college  instructors,  states- 
men as  well  as  linguists,  and  shipbuilders  as  well  as 
mathematicians,  men  of  action  as  well  as  men  of 
thought.     This  means  a  great  deal  more  than  annual 

38 


THE    BUILDING    OF    A    UNIVP:RSITY 

crops  of  Doctors  of  Philosophy  to  scramble  for  the 
few  dozen  vacant  instructorships  open  year  by  year. 
But  with  all  these  discouragements  original  research  is 
the  loftiest  function  of  the  university.  In  its  consum- 
mate excellence  is  found  the  motive  for  its  imitation. 

There  is  but  one  way  in  which  a  university  can 
discharge  this  function.  It  cannot  give  prizes  for 
research.  It  cannot  stimulate  it  by  means  of  publica- 
tion, still  less  by  hiring  men  to  come  to  its  walls  to 
pursue  it.  The  whole  system  of  fellowships  for  ad- 
vanced students  is  on  trial,  with  most  of  the  evidence 
against  it.  The  students  paid  to  study  are  not  the 
ones  who  do  the  work.  When  they  are  such,  they 
would  have  done  the  work  unpaid.  The  fellowship 
system  tends  to  turn  science  into  almsgiving,  to  make 
the  promising  youth  feel  that  the  world  owes  him  a 
living. 

All  these  plans  of  university  building,  and  others, 
have  been  fairly  tried  in  America.  There  is  but  one 
that  succeeds.  Those  who  do  original  work  will  train 
others  to  do  it.  Where  the  teachers  are  themselves 
original  investigators  devoted  to  truth  and  skilful  in 
the  search  for  it  —  men  that  cannot  be  frightened, 
fatigued,  or  discouraged  —  they  will  have  students 
like  themselves.  To  work  under  such  men  students 
like-minded  will  come  from  the  ends  of  the  earth.  It 
is  the  part  of  the  investigators  to  make  the  university, 
as  the  teachers  make  the  college.  There  never  was  a 
genuine  university  on  any  other  terms.      It  is  not  con- 

39 


THE    BUILDING    OF    A    UNIVERSITY 

ceivable  that  there  should  ever  be  one.  It  is  not 
necessary  that  all  departments  should  be  equal  to 
make  the  university  real.  It  was  enough  at  Harvard 
to  have  Agassiz  and  Gray,  Lowell  and  Longfellow, 
Goodwin  and  Holmes,  to  justify  the  name  of  univer- 
sity. Silliman  and  Dana  made  a  university  of  Yale. 
Such  men  are  as  rare  as  they  are  choice,  and  no  uni- 
versity faculty  was  ever  yet  composed  of  them  alone, 
and  none  ever  yet  had  too  many  of  them.  President 
Gilman  has  wisely  said: 

' '  In  the  conduct  of  a  university  secure  the  ablest 
men  as  professors,  regardless  of  all  other  qualifica- 
tions, excepting  those  of  personal  merit  and  adaptation 
to  the  chairs  that  are  to  be  filled.  Borrow  if  you  can- 
not enlist.  Give  them  freedom.  Give  them  auxil- 
iaries. Give  them  liberal  support.  Encourage  them 
to  come  before  the  world  of  science  and  of  letters  with 
their  publications.  Bright  students,  soon  to  be  men 
of  distinction,  will  be  their  loyal  followers,  and  the 
world  will  say  Amen. 

' '  The  merit  of  a  university  depends  on  the  men 
who  are  called  to  conduct  it,  upon  them  absolutely  if 
not  exclusively;  for  although  the  teacher  must  have 
such  auxiliaries  as  books  and  instruments — books  are 
nothing  but  paper  and  ink  until  they  are  read,  and 
instruments  but  brass  and  glass  until  craft  and  skill  are 
applied  to  their  handling." 

But  it  is  in  its  men  that  the  real  university  has  its 
real  being.      Through  the  work  of  such  men  it  stands 

40 


THE    BUILDING    OF    A    UNIVERSITY 

in  the  vanguard  of  civilization.  By  such  men  it  counts 
the  milestones  in  its  course,  and  no  trick  of  organiza- 
tion, no  urging  of  the  printing-press,  no  subsidy  of 
students,  can  be  made  to  take  their  place. 

A  final  word  as  to  the  practical  side  of  advanced 
research.  Mr.  Carnegie  once  ascribed  the  foundation 
of  his  great  fortune  to  the  fact  that  he  first  employed 
trained  chemists  where  other  manufacturers  chose 
workmen  skilled  in  making  steel  by  rule  of  thumb. 
His  chemists  were  able  to  suggest  improvements. 
They  devised  ways  of  making  better  steel  cheaper 
still,  and  at  the  same  time  of  utilizing  the  refuse  or 
slag. 

In  the  future  the  success  of  each  great  enterprise 
must  depend  on  the  improvements  it  makes.  The 
nation  successful  in  manufacture  and  commerce  will  be 
the  one  richest  in  labor-aiding  devices.  All  these 
must  depend  on  the  advancement  of  knowledge.  Pure 
science  must  precede  applied  science. 

Once  the  manufacturer  or  the  nation  could  hire  its 
chemists  as  it  needed  them.  The  few  asked  for  were 
already  made.  Now  they  must  make  them.  The 
advancement  of  any  branch  of  science  depends  on  the 
mastery  of  what  is  known  before.  Everything  easy 
and  everything  inexpensive  has  been  found  out.  To 
train  the  chemist  of  the  future  we  need  constantly  finer 
instruments  of  precision  for  his  advanced  work,  access 
to  greater  and  greater  libraries  that  he  may  know  what 
is   already   done,    for   each    generation    of    scientific 

41 


THE    BUILDING    OF    A    UNIVERSITY 

workers  must  stand  on  the  shoulders  of  those  gone 
before,  else  it  can  make  no  progress  beyond  them. 
The  scholars  of  today  would  be  helpless  were  it  not 
that  they  can  save  time  by  drawing  freely  on  the  accu- 
mulated knowledge  of  the  past. 

To  learn  the  elements  of  any  science  costs  little. 
It  can  be  learned  at  one  end  of  a  log  with  a  great 
teacher  on  the  other.  It  can  be  even  learned  without 
a  teacher.  But  to  master  a  science  so  as  to  extend  its 
boundaries — this  is  quite  another  thing.  More  than 
a  man  can  earn  in  a  lifetime  it  costs  to  make  a  start. 
For  this  reason  a  university  which  provides  means  for 
such  work  is  a  very  costly  establishment.  For  this 
reason  the  investigator  of  the  future  must  depend  on 
the  university.  The  nation  with  the  best  equipped 
universities  will  furnish  the  best-trained  men.  On  the 
universities  progress  in  manufactures  and  commerce 
must  depend.  Through  the  superiority  of  training 
Germany  is  passing  England  in  the  commercial  world, 
in  spite  of  her  handicaps  of  position  and  history. 
Through  the  excellence  of  her  universities,  without 
most  of  these  handicaps,  America  is  likely  to  excel 
both  Germany  and  England. 

As  men  of  science  are  needed,  they  cannot  make 
themselves.  Those  with  power  can  help  them.  This 
fact  has  given  the  impulse  to  the  far-reaching  gifts  of 
Stanford,  Rockefeller,  Carnegie,  and  Rhodes.  These 
are  not  gifts,  but  investments  put  to  the  credit  of  the 
country's   future.     The   people,  too,   have  power  to 

42 


THE    BUILDING    OF    A    UNIVERSITY 


give.  The  same  feeling  of  investment  has  led  them 
to  build  their  state  universities,  and  to  entrust  to  them 
not  only  the  work  of  personal  culture,  but  of  advance- 
ment in  literature,  science,  and  arts.  With  general 
culture  and  professional  training  must  go  the  advance- 
ment of  knowledge,  the  progress  of  society,  through 
the  advancement  of  the  wisdom  and  the  power  of 
man. 


43 


III. 

AN    APOLOGY    FOR 
THE    AMERICAN    UNIVERSITY. 

NOW  and  then  in  these  days  some  successful 
business  man  raises  his  eyes  from  his  coun- 
ter to  question  the  American  university's 
right  to  exist.  ' '  Does  higher  education 
pay?"  he  asks,  and  from  his  own  experience  of  tire- 
less energy,  and  from  his  own  contact  with  thin- 
legged,  white-faced  collegians  seeking  a  job,  he  gives 
to  this  question  a  qualified  negative.  He  further 
claims,  should  he  care  to  pursue  the  subject  at  greater 
length,  that  opportunities  for  higher  education  are  too 
widely  diffused,  and  that  the  American  masses  are  vic- 
tims of  over-education. 

If  all  this  is  true,  it  is  time  to  call  a  halt  and  take 
account  of  stock.  We  have  invested  too  much  in 
universities — love  and  devotion,  as  well  as  bonds  and 
gold  —  for  us  to  be  indifferent  to  their  usefulness.  In 
any  case,  it  may  be  worth  our  while  to  spend  half  an 
hour  in  considering  this  question,  even  though  to  you 
and  me,  who  are  not  in  success  as  a  life  business, 
such  statements  of  men  of  business  may  seem  belated 
and  absurd. 

44 


APOLOGY   FOR   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 

It  is  certain,  in  the  first  place,  that  to  speak  of 
"over-education"  is  a  misuse  of  terms.  If  education 
is  rational  and  effective,  there  cannot  be  too  much  of 
it.  It  is  not  men  trained  and  efficient  who  enter 
into  destructive  competition.  It  is  the  ignorant  and 
ineffective  who  make  the  struggle  for  existence  so  dire 
a  battle.  Whatever  leaves  men  weak  and  ineffective 
cannot  justly  be  called  education.  There  is  nothing 
more  useful  than  wisdom,  nothing  more  effective  than 
training,  nothing  more  practical  than  sunshine. 
Surely  no  one  can  claim  that  the  American  people  are 
too  wise,  too  skilful,  or  too  enlightened  for  their  own 
good.  Yet  to  give  wisdom,  skill,  and  enlightenment 
is  the  main  function  of  higher  education.  It  cannot 
give  brains,  courage,  and  virtue  where  these  qualities 
were  wanting  before.  It  cannot  make  a  man,  but  it 
furnishes  the  best  known  means  to  help  a  man  to  make 
himself.  The  gain  through  self-building  often  out- 
weighs in  value  the  original  material.  It  may  be  more 
important  even  than  the  finished  product,  as  effort  is  a 
greater  source  of  strength  and  happiness  to  man  than 
final  achievement. 

What  these  critics  usually  mean  to  attack  is  misfit 
education — the  training  or  straining  of  the  memory 
rather  than  the  acquisition  of  power  to  think  and  act. 
They  mean  that  the  colleges  give  schooling  rather  than 
training.  They  "teach  young  people  how  to  talk 
rather  than  how  to  live."  This  is  still  true  to  some 
extent,   in  some  places,   but  the  whole  tendency  of 

45 


APOLOGY   FOR  AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 

university  movement  is  toward  reality  and  practicality. 
These  critics  have  not  watched  this  movement.  They 
do  not  draw  their  idea  of  a  university  from  the  power- 
ful, well-organized  institutions  of  the  day,  which  lay 
hold  of  every  various  power  of  humanity  and  seek  to 
draw  it  into  effective,  harmonious  action.  Rather  they 
picture  to  themselves  the  starveling  colleges  of  their 
youth,  where  callow  boys  were  driven,  against  their 
will,  over  race-courses  of  study,  no  part  of  which  ap- 
pealed to  their  own  souls  or  was  related  in  any  way  to 
their  lives.  Such  colleges  and  such  ideals  of  educa- 
tion exist  in  our  time,  in  certain  forgotten  corners,  but 
they  are  in  no  sense  typical  of  the  American  univer- 
sity of  today.  Harvard  and  Cornell,  and  the  great 
and  growing  state  universities  of  the  West,  are  as 
firmly  and  thoroughly  devoted  to  the  needs  of  Ameri- 
can democracy  as  the  modern  harvester  is  to  the 
needs  of  the  American  wheat  fields. 

No  doubt  inferior  methods,  dull,  stupid  traditions, 
can  be  found  here  and  there  under  the  name  of  higher 
education,  as  rusty  or  worn-out  machinery  exists 
under  the  name  of  agricultural  implements.  It  is  not 
by  these  that  the  best  we  have  should  be  judged.  No 
one  knows  better  than  our  college  authorities  the  mis- 
fits and  failures  of  education.  No  one  strives  half  so 
hard  to  prevent  them,  though  in  all  large  enterprises 
no  one  can  avoid  a  certain  percentage  of  failure. 

Not  all  the  critics  in  business  life  taken  together 
have  done  one-tenth  as  much  to  make  education  prac- 

46 


APOLOGY   FOR   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 

tical  as  has  any  one  of  the  great  university  presidents 
of  our  time.  Let  us  mention,  for  example,  Eliot  and 
White  and  Angell  and  Tappan.  Under  the  hands  of 
these  men,  and  others  like  these,  the  whole  face  of 
higher  education  in  America  has  changed  in  the 
last  twenty  years,  and  the  change  has  been  in  every 
way  toward  greater  usefulness  and  practicality.  As 
the  limited  express  of  today  compares  with  the  cross- 
roads accommodation  train,  so  does  the  American 
university  we  all  know,  or  ought  to  know,  compare 
with  the  college  of  twenty  years  ago.  The  little  cur- 
riculum of  the  college,  its  Latin  verses,  mythology, 
mathematics,  and  dilute  philosophy  covered  but  a 
small  arc  in  the  grand  circle.  The  entire  range  of  the 
activities  of  men  constitutes  the  field  of  the  university. 
The  keynote  of  railroad  progress  has  been  useful- 
ness to  the  traveling  public.  The  limited  express 
carries  well,  carries  quickly,  carries  comfortably,  accu- 
rately, and  safely  the  multitudes  of  people  who 
demand  transportation.  Its  fresher  paint,  handsomer 
cars,  and  softer  cushions  are  only  incidental  to  this. 
So  with  the  university  of  today.  It  aims  to  meet  the 
needs  of  all  men,  whatever  these  needs  may  be,  and 
of  all  women,  too  —  all  to  whom  higher  training  or 
higher  outlook  is  possible.  It  meets  these  needs  accu- 
rately, safely,  and  without  waste  of  time  or  effort.  Its 
greater  size  and  greater  impressiveness  of  buildings, 
libraries,  and  laboratories  are  only  incidents.  Its 
purpose  is  direct,  practical,  and  unflinching.     Those 

47 


APOLOGY   FOR   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 

who  criticise  its  results  must  take  a  broad  view  of  its 
purposes.  Because  a  Harvard  man  once  drove  a  street- 
car in  San  Francisco,  or  because  some  despondent 
invalid  from  Yale  is  seeking  a  third-class  clerkship,  is 
no  indictment  of  Harvard  or  Yale  any  more  than  a 
chance  tramp  on  a  brake-beam  is  an  impeachment  of 
the  management  of  a  great  railroad. 

If  the  passengers  in  general  rode  on  the  brake- 
beams  in  preference  to  the  coaches,  it  might  give  rise 
to  an  indictment.  If  the  Harvard  man  of  today  can- 
not, as  a  rule,  make  use  of  his  knowledge,  if  he  cannot 
take  care  of  himself  and  open  the  door  of  opportunity 
to  others  —  if  the  more  of  Harvard  the  less  of  man  — 
then  we  may  question  Harvard's  right  to  her  endow- 
ments. But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  this  is  not  true. 
Among  men  in  every  walk  of  life,  among  our  bridge 
builders,  our  preachers,  and  our  mechanics,  our  teach- 
ers, our  statesmen,  and  our  naturalists,  our  bookmen, 
our  physicians,  our  financiers,  our  electricians,  our 
lawyers,  and  our  journalists,  the  university  men  stand 
everywhere  at  the  front.  They  are  effective,  enlight- 
ened, practical.  They  have  had  some  one  thing 
clearly  in  view;  they  have  striven  to  do  it,  and  to  do 
it  so  well  that  their  work  needs  no  after-patching. 

It  is  true  that  this  has  not  always  been  so  to  the 
degree  that  it  is  today.  Once  the  college  educa- 
tion was  not  related  to  life.  It  did  not  pretend  to  be. 
It  had  nothing  to  do  with  action.  It  was  not  even  the 
foundation  of  scholarship.      The  scholars  of  the  early 

4.S 


APOLOGY   FOR    AMERICAN    UNIVERSITY 

days  were  as  much  self-taught  as  the  merchants.  The 
school  training  was  discipline  only,  a  drill  in  memory 
and  discrimination,  the  things  memorized  and  the 
things  studied  to  be  forgotten  when  real  life  began. 
The  original  investigator  —  that  is,  the  real  scholar,  in 
any  field,  in  language  even  —  had  to  begin  at  the  bot- 
tom when  his  college  course  was  finished.  He  had  to 
find  his  own  materials,  devise  his  own  methods,  and 
forge  his  own  implements,  just  as  the  self-taught 
scholar  had  to  do.  The  man  with  definite  purposes 
saw  his  way  to  his  goal  outside  of  college,  for  the  col- 
lege would  not  swerve  from  its  mediaeval  English 
ideals  a  hair's  breadth  to  meet  the  need  of  the  student. 

Learning  breeds  vanity,  some  one  has  said;  while 
wisdom  is  the  parent  of  modesty.  The  old-time  col- 
lege student  had  learning.  He  learned  rules  by  heart, 
and  lists  of  exceptions.  He  learned  the  propositions 
of  Euclid,  and  could  repeat  every  corollary  by  num- 
ber. If  he  studied  science,  this  too  was  made  a  matter 
of  names,  definition,  and  exceptions.  The  best  bot- 
anist was  the  one  who  knew  the  most  Latin  names  of 
plants.  The  best  historian  knew  the  names  and  dates 
of  most  kings  and  the  details  of  the  greatest  number 
of  campaigns. 

The  college  education  was  once  valued  for  the 
feeling  of  superiority  which  it  engendered.  The 
bachelor  of  arts  was  as  good  as  the  best  of  men  and 
better  than  most.  ' '  Of  all  horned  cattle, ' '  said 
Horace  Greeley,    "  commend  me  to  the  college  grad- 

49 


APOLOGY   FOR   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 


uate."  He  meant  the  kind  which  is  filled  with  learn- 
ing, with  a  fatuous  vanity,  which  sprouted  like  the 
calf's  horns.  If  we  define  an  educated  man  as  one 
who  has  learned  the  secret  of  power  in  nature  or  life, 
he  is  not  classified  with  horned  cattle.  He  becomes  a 
man,  and  to  send  forth  such  is  the  work  of  the  uni- 
versity of  today. 

It  is  said  by  some  one  that  the  greatest  joy  on  earth 
with  certain  women  —  greater  even  than  the  pleasures 
of  hope  and  even  the  consolations  of  religion  —  is  the 
* '  well-dressed  feeling. ' '  We  know  what  this  is  like 
and  how  it  affects  its  possessor,  even  though  we  do  not 
share  it  ourselves.  I  saw  an  example  the  other  day 
on  a  railway  train.  A  lady,  not  graceful  nor  gracious 
nor  beautiful,  was  dressed  to  her  own  perfect  satis- 
faction. I  could  not  describe  the  details,  which  had 
no  special  charm  for  me,  but  the  aggregate  was  the 
sure  feeling  of  being  well  dressed.  This  showed  itself 
in  the  expression  of  her  face,  at  once  haughty  and 
beatific.  The  college  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts  con- 
ferred on  our  fathers  the  well-dressed  feeling.  They 
were  at  once  haughty  and  beatific  in  the  possession  of 
it,  and  to  gain  the  degree,  not  to  enter  into  the  gath- 
ered store  of  intellectual  power,  was  their  purpose  in 
running  over  the  prescribed  curriculum. 

But  whatever  we  may  say  of  outworn  methods, 
they  were  not  without  their  successes.  In  these  the 
olci  college  found  ample  justification.  Mental  keen- 
ness follows  mental  friction.     The  spirit  of  comradery 

5° 


APOLOGY   FOR   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 

led  to  a  higher  spirit  of  friendliness  and  mutual  help. 
The  debating  society,  where  alone  —  outside  of  school 
hours  —  real  subjects  were  under  discussion,  laid  the 
foundation  of  many  a  statesman's  prominence  on  the 
floor  of  the  senate. 

To  spend  four  formative  years  in  life  not  sordid 
has  a  moral  reflex  on  the  character.  The  weakest  and 
most  illogical  college  course  may  be  far  better  than  no 
college  training  at  all.  Men  can  make  up  for  lost 
time.  It  is  harder  to  make  up  for  lost  inspiration. 
The  American  college  of  the  past  was  a  feeble  copy 
of  the  colleges  of  England.  The  American  university 
of  today  draws  its  inspiration  from  the  deeper,  stronger 
currents  of  German  scholarship. 

An  Oxford  man  has  recently  criticised  the  splendid 
aggregation  of  great  boarding-schools,  which  modern 
needs  are  slowly  and  reluctantly  molding  into  Oxford 
University.  "Our  men,"  he  says,  " are  not  schol- 
ars; our  scholars  not  men."  The  old  ideals  of  educa- 
tion still  cherished  at  Oxford  too  often  lead  to  this. 
Those  called  scholars — the  dig,  the  grind,  the 
pedant — are  not  men.  Their  worth  is  not  related  to 
life,  and  they  are  not  trained  for  living.  The  other 
class — the  athletes,  the  good  fellows,  the  robust  Brit- 
ish gentlemen  —  these  are  not  scholars.  For  the  lines 
of  thought  and  action  which  interest  the  live  man  are 
not  yet  reckoned  as  scholarship  m  England. 

To  know  nature,  life,  art,  one  must  go  outside  the 
tripos  or  three  sacred  pedestals  of  learning  —  Latin, 

SI 


APOLOGY  FOR   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 

Greek,  mathematics — -recognized  by  the  conventional 
college.  To  the  university  of  Germany  we  go,  or  to 
the  university  of  America,  and  in  these  institutions  of 
reality  every  man  in  search  of  wisdom  or  power  will 
find  his  efforts  strengthened,  his  success  hastened. 
The  ideal  of  the  American  university  of  today  is  ex- 
pressed in  the  words  constructive  hidividuality.  It 
would  build  up  scholarship  and  character,  but  always 
on  the  basis  of  the  powers  which  nature  gave  the  indi- 
vidual. It  is  no  abstract  or  ideal  man  with  which  it 
deals,  but  real  men,  just  as  they  are,  the  individuals 
as  created  —  no  two  alike,  each  with  his  own  divine 
gift  of  personality,  which  separates  the  man  that  is 
from  all  the  men  that  are,  or  were,  or  ever  will  be. 

I  have  used  the  words  ' '  college ' '  and  ' '  univer- 
sity "  in  an  interchangeable  sense.  This  I  have  done 
on  purpose,  for  I  do  not  believe  that  the  distinction, 
which  seems  to  exist,  and  on  which  some  writers  have 
laid  great  emphasis,  is  one  which  can  or  ought  to  be 
permanent.  From  the  extension  of  the  college  the 
American  university  has  sprung,  but  every  one  of 
these  institutions  still  includes,  and  must  include,  the 
college,  which  is  the  germ.  Every  successful  college 
points  toward  the  university,  and,  so  far  as  is  possible, 
it  strives  to  become  such.  The  university  is  the  expres- 
sion of  thoroughness  of  training,  and  without  thor- 
oughness in  something  no  institution  can  live. 

It  is  said  that  the  college  is  for  the  average  man, 
the  university  for  the  exceptional  one.     But  this  is  not 


APOLOGY   FOR   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 

true,  as  a  matter  of  fact.  The  average  man,  the 
exceptional  man,  and  the  man  below  the  average  are 
found  in  all  institutions.  The  '''  bemoostes  Haupt''' 
the  moss-grown  head,  grown  gray  in  the  struggle  for 
a  degree,  is  well  known  in  the  universities  of  Ger- 
many, while  the  smallest  college  of  the  prairies  has 
been  the  cherishing  mother  of  many  a  distinguished 
scholar. 

The  fact  is  that  the  college  is  a  temporary  feature 
of  American  educational  history.  The  college  is  a 
small  university,  antiquated,  belated,  arrested,  starved, 
as  the  case  may  be,  but  with  university  aspirations  to 
be  realized  in  such  degree  as  it  can.  The  strongest  of 
these  find  an  assured  place  by  the  side  of  the  univer- 
sities—  Brown  University  and  Amherst  College,  Wes- 
leyan  University  and  Williams  College,  Colgate 
University  and  Bryn  Mawr  College.  These  belong 
to  a  single  general  class,  and  differ  only  in  name. 
Each  gives  the  best  and  broadest  undergraduate 
courses  its  finances  afford,  with  as  extended  a  course 
in  graduate  study  as  circumstances  make  possible. 
Harvard  is  the  same  in  kind,  though  its  extension  is 
greater,  while  the  ambition  of  the  college  of  the 
prairies  is  not  less  nor  different. 

As  time  goes  on,  the  college  will  disappear  in  fact, 
if  not  in  name.  The  best  and  richest  colleges  will 
become  universities,  following  the  example  of  Har- 
vard, Yale,  and  Princeton.  The  others  will  return  to 
their  places  as  academies,  fitting  men  for  college,  as 


APOLOGY   FOR   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 

they  now  try  to  fit  them  for  the  university.  Every 
year  shows  both  these  forms  of  transition.  In  the  last 
ten  years  at  least  a  half  dozen  of  the  California  col- 
leges have  joined  the  ranks  of  the  high  schools,  ceas- 
ing to  grant  academic  degrees.  In  other  western 
and  southern  States  the  same  change  has  taken  place. 
On  the  other  hand,  twenty  institutions,  which  have 
prided  themselves  on  their  contentment  as  * '  mere  col- 
leges," have  reached  out,  in  one  way  or  another,  into 
graduate  work,  and  many  rest  their  best  fame  on  the 
influence  of  some  teacher  whose  originality  and  thor- 
oughness gave  his  work  the  true  university  character. 

Since  Eliot  became  president  of  Harvard  Univer- 
sity, the  number  of  college  students  in  the  United 
States  has  increased  perhaps  a  hundred -fold.  This 
is  due  to  no  educational  fad,  no  passing  whim  of 
the  hour.  Young  men  and  young  women  do  not  rush 
by  thousands  to  the  universities  every  fall  because  they 
seek  social  recognition,  because  their  fathers  went  to 
college,  because  they  need  a  college  degree  in  their 
business,  because  of  the  glory  of  the  football  team, 
nor  for  any  one  of  a  hundred  side  reasons  which  might 
be  conjured  up.  They  go  to  the  university  because 
the  university  offers  training  which  they  want,  and 
which  they  cannot  do  without,  except  at  a  cost  which 
will  narrow  and  cramp  their  whole  after  lives. 

The  student  of  today  is  far  more  advanced  in 
thought  and  action  than  the  student  of  thirty  years 
ago.     The  graduate  of  Harvard  under  any  of  Eliot's 

54 


APOLOGY   FOR   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 

predecessors  could  barely  enter  the  freshman  class 
in  the  Harvard  of  today.  Not  that  he  had  not  studied 
enough  things  or  spent  time  enough  on  them,  but 
because  the  work  of  earlier  times  lacked  thorough- 
ness, breadth,  and  vitality.  In  one  or  two  narrow 
lines  some  great  teacher  might  make  his  work  thor- 
ough and  real,  but  that  a  student  should  actually  know 
anything  so  as  to  be  able  to  make  a  place  in  life  by 
means  of  such  knowledge,  was  to  most  of  Eliot' s  pre- 
decessors a  new  and  dangerous  notion. 

This  condition  of  things  was  changed,  not  by  out- 
side criticism,  the  chance  slurs  of  men  of  business  or 
men  of  leisure,  but  by  inside  growth. 

It  was  thirty  years  ago  that  Agassiz  told  his  asso- 
ciates that  Harvard  was  no  university  — ' '  only  a 
respectable  high  school  where  they  taught  the  dregs 
of  learning."  He  recognized  that  for  most  men  the 
sacred  tripos  was  not  the  foundation  of  culture,  but 
the  dregs  of  culture.  Its  place  of  importance  was 
assigned,  not  by  hope,  but  by  tradition.  It  was  the 
same  good  old  Harvard  which  Emerson  blamed  for 
never  having  led  him  to  the  tree  of  life.  But  even 
Emerson  was  appalled  when  the  study  of  realities  in- 
vaded Harvard  College,  and  men  began  to  give 
themselves  not  to  ideal  and  tradition,  but  to  serious 
preparation  for  the  work  of  life.  Once  he  hinted  that 
"a  check-rein  should  be  placed  on  the  enthusiastic 
young  professor  who  was  responsible ' '  for  the  destruc- 
tion of  Harvard's  time-honored  symmetry. 

55 


APOLOGY   FOR  AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 

In  Agassiz's  answer  we  touch  the  keynote  of  uni- 
versity progress  —  not  to  check  the  current  of  effort 
for  symmetry's  sake,  but  to  stimulate  all  possible 
forms  of  intellectual  growth.  "If  symmetry  is  to  be 
obtained  by  cutting  down  the  most  vigorous  growth, ' ' 
he  said,  ' '  it  would  be  better  to  have  a  little  irregularity 
here  and  there. ' ' 

It  is  thirty  years  since  Herbert  Spencer  startled 
the  English  educational  world  by  his  question  :  ' '  What 
knowledge  is  most  worth  ? ' '  For  the  men  of  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  did  not  value  knowledge  for  its  worth, 
but  rather  for  its  traditional  respectability.  They  de- 
fined a  university  as  "a  place  where  nothing  useful  is 
taught,"  and  they  had  only  contempt  for  "bread- 
and-butter  learning,"  or  knowledge  related  to  daily 
life.  This  might  do  for  the  learned  professions  — 
law,  medicine,  and  theology  —  but  even  for  these  the 
college  gave  no  hint  of  direct  preparation.  Herbert 
Spencer  answered  his  own  question  in  favor  of  science, 
the  facts  and  laws  of  human  life  and  of  external 
nature.  These  have  a  real  worth  to  man,  which  the 
sacred  tripos  did  not  possess.  On  the  belief  that 
knowledge  of  all  kinds  has  real  worth  to  some  one  the 
modern  university  rests. 

At  Champaign,  ten  years  ago,  I  had  occasion 
to  say:  "The  university  should  be  the  great  refuge 
hut  on  the  ultimate  boundaries  of  knowledge  from 
which  daily  and  weekly  adventurous  bands  set  forth 
on  voyages  of  discovery.     It  should    be   the   Uper- 

56 


APOLOGY   FOR   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 


navik  from  which  polar  travelers  draw  their  sup- 
plies. As  the  shoreless  sea  of  the  unknown  meets 
us  on  every  side,  the  same  house  of  refuge  and 
supply  will  ser\'e  for  a  thousand  different  exploring 
parties  moving  out  in  every  direction  into  the  infinite 
ocean.  After  countless  ages  of  education  and  scien- 
tific progress,  the  true  university  will  stand  on  the 
verge,  its  walls  still  washed  by  the  same  unending 
sea,  the  boundless  ocean  of  possible  human  knowl- 
edge." 

The  college  of  the  past  dealt  chiefly  with  record 
and  tradition.  It  sought  no  new  truth  and  coveted  no 
action.  The  college  life  was  a  period  of  restful  growth, 
to  be  cherished  for  its  fragrant  memories.  It  was  not 
a  time  of  forceful  struggle  for  heightened  power  and 
deeper  wisdom. 

The  university  of  today  is  alert  to  all  the  problems 
of  social  and  political  development.  The  poorhouse, 
the  jail,  the  caucus,  the  legislature,  the  army,  the  dis- 
cordant demands  of  freedom  and  order, — all  these 
call  for  closest  attention  of  the  university  student. 
While  one  man  studies  the  law  of  heredity  as  shown 
in  the  structure  of  the  body  cells,  another  gives  equal 
attention  to  the  fate  of  the  tramp  and  the  pauper. 
One  spends  his  strength  on  the  economical  transfer- 
ence of  electric  force  while  another  works  on  the 
conservation  of  honesty  in  the  public  service.  There 
are  just  as  many  classical  scholars  today  as  there  ever 
were,  but  they  no  longer  bar  the  way  to  men  of  other 

57 


APOLOGY   FOR   AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY 

powers  and  other  tastes.  The  classics  no  longer  close 
the  door  to  other  forms  of  culture.  He  who  writes 
Latin  verses  still  finds  his  place  in  the  university,  pro- 
vided only  that  his  verses  are  good  enough  to  be  worth 
writing.  But  he  no  longer  occupies  the  sole  place  of 
honor,  or  even  the  front  seat  in  the  lecture  hall.  The 
man  who  knows  the  steam  engine  has  an  equal  place 
in  the  university  and  an  equal  share  in  the  honors  of 
scholarship.  With  the  advent  of  realities,  spurious 
honors  disappear.  It  is  not  for  the  university  to 
decide  on  the  relative  values  of  knowledge.  Each 
man  makes  his  own  market,  controlled  by  his  own 
standards.  It  is  for  the  university  to  see  that  all 
standards  are  honest,  that  all  work  is  genuine.  To  do 
this,  it  must  cast  off  many  of  its  own  shams  of  the 
past.  Its  titles  and  privileges,  its  prizes  and  honors, 
its  distinctions  and  degrees,  its  caps  and  gowns,  and 
chaplets  of  laurel  berries  —  all  the  playthings  and  mil- 
linery of  its  youth  it  must  cast  away  with  its  full 
maturity.  These  prizes  of  learning  are  but  baby  toys 
to  the  man  of  power.  To  send  forth  men  of  power 
the  university  exists. 

The  value  of  the  university  has  been  under  discus- 
sion ever  since  the  days  of  Alfred  and  Charlemagne, 
and  each  nation  in  each  century  has  formed  its  own 
answer.  Its  value  to  a  monarchy  is  not  the  same  as 
its  worth  to  a  republic.  Its  value  to  the  all-embracing 
church  is  not  the  same  as  its  use  to  the  individual  man 
and  woman.     The  church  looks  to  the  university  for 

58 


APOLOGY  FOR  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY 

its  defender  and  its  apologist;  the  individual  man  for 
his  own  enlightenment  and  strength.  The  king  looks 
to  the  university  for  agents  and  advisers,  to  democ- 
racy for  the  antidote  to  the  demagogue  and  spoilsman. 
Emperor  William  is  reported  to  have  said  :  "Bis- 
marck and  von  Moltke  were  but  the  tools  by  which 
my  august  grandfather  worked  his  will. ' '  To  furnish 
the  emperor  with  tools  of  such  edge  and  temper  is 
the  function  of  the  imperial  university.  Tools  of  a 
still  more  august  ruler  are  the  statesmen  of  America. 
Our  Washingtons  and  Lincolns,  our  Sumners  and 
Hoars,  our  Lowells  and  Emersons  —  all  these  are  the 
tools  by  which  the  people  of  the  Republic  work  their 
will. 

To  such  needs  the  modern  university  is  fully  alive. 
Edward  Everett  Hale  tells  us  that  in  i860,  when 
Robert  Todd  Lincoln  entered  Harvard  College,  bring- 
ing letters  of  introduction  from  Abraham  Lincoln  and 
Stephen  A.  Douglass,  there  was  but  one  man  in  Har- 
vard who  had  ever  heard  of  Lincoln.  This  was  Pro- 
fessor James  Russell  Lowell,  who  said  at  the  time: 
"I  suppose  that  I  am  the  only  man  in  this  room  who 
has  ever  heard  of  this  Abraham  Lincoln,  but  he  is 
the  person  with  whom  Douglass  has  been  traveling  up 
and  down  in  Illinois,  canvassing  the  state  in  their  new 
western  fashion  as  representatives  of  the  two  parties, 
each  of  them  being  the  candidate  for  the  vacant  seat 
in  the  senate. ' ' 

That  Harvard  was  not    long   indifferent    to  what 

59 


APOLOGY   FOR   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 

Abraham  Lincoln  stood  for  is  shown  by  the  roll  of 
names  in  her  Memorial  Hall;  the  list  of 

those  whose  faith  and  truth 
On  war's  true  touchstone  rang  true  metal. 

Once  awakened  to  her  public  duty,  our  great  univer- 
sity has  never  since  slept.  Her  hand  is  in  all  public 
affairs.  Whatever  is  well  done  is  permeated  by  her 
wisdom  and  zeal,  and  the  courage  and  force  of  her 
sister  institutions. 

One  can  count  on  his  fingers  today,  taking  every 
one,  university  men  without  public  office  or  likelihood 
of  any,  investigators  and  professors,  who  exert  a 
greater  influence  in  any  political  crisis  than  presidents 
and  cabinets,  than  orators  and  agitators,  than  admirals 
and  generals.  The  immediate  responsibility  for  action 
rests  with  the  temporary  official,  but  behind  the  inves- 
tigator is  the  power  of  eternal  truth.  Whatever  men 
do  or  say  or  pretend,  it  is  the  truth  that  has  the  last 
word.  This  is  so  sure  in  the  affairs  of  men  that  when 
truth  appears  plain  before  them  they  throw  up  their 
idle  weapons  and  call  her  God  or  fate.  And  these, 
indeed,  are  other  names  for  truth.  For  the  worship 
of  truth  the  university  must  stand,  and  there  is  but 
one  tormula  for  her  ritual.  He  shall  seek  her  pa- 
tiently, untiringly.  If  perchance  he  find  her,  then 
shall  he  proclaim  her  without  fear  and  without  reserve. 

The  American  university  serves  the  American 
republic  in  several  ways. 

60 


APOLOGY   FOR   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 

It  intensities  individual  force  and  effort.  It  takes 
a  man's  best  abilities  and  raises  them  to  the  second  or 
third  or  tenth  power,  as  we  say  in  algebra.  The  value 
of  the  college-bred  engineer  is  recognized  in  the  rail- 
roads, in  the  mines,  in  the  factories.  With  the  same 
willingness  to  work  as  the  man  who  has  learned 
engineering  by  rule  of  thumb,  he  has  a  far  greater 
adaptability,  a  far  wider  command  of  resources.  This 
fact  may  not  appear  in  a  day  or  a  year;  hence  some 
men  prefer  the  ordinary  practical  man,  because  he  is 
less  ambitious  and  can  be  had  cheap.  Sooner  or  later, 
however,  a  condition  arises  which  shows  the  difference. 
The  wise  employer  forecasts  this  and  puts  the  respon- 
sibility on  the  man  who  is  surest  to  carry  it  when  the 
real  trial  comes. 

What  is  true  of  the  educated  engineer  is  equally 
true  in  other  trades  or  professions.  The  ignorant 
physician  makes  money  because  he  deals  with  ignorant 
men,  and  the  grave  covers  his  blunders.  But  sooner 
or  later  truth  turns  her  searchlight  on  pretense,  and 
the  educated  physician  and  the  fraudulent  healer  are 
no  longer  in  competition. 

The  university  of  today  has  no  new  mission  in 
these  regards.  Its  purpose  has  simply  broadened 
year  by  year  till  it  covers  the  needs  of  every  man 
with  brains  and  conscience.  Not  only  for  the  Greek- 
minded  and  Roman-minded  men,  but  for  the  men  of 
dynamos  and  sewer  trenches,  the  breeders  of  sheep 
and  the  importers  of  silks;  for  the  singer  of  songs  and 

6i 


APOLOGY  FOR   AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY 

the  writer  of  histories;  for  all  men,  of  whatever  call- 
ing, the  university  has  its  word  of  welcome,  its  touch 
of  power. 

The  university  should  give  to  each  man  or  woman 
a  broader  outlook  on  the  world,  the  horizon  of  the 
scholar.  No  one  has  the  right  to  the  name  of  scholar 
till  he  knows  some  one  thing  thoroughly,  and  enough 
of  other  things  to  place  this  special  .knowledge  in 
right  perspective.  The  more  deeply  one  enters  into 
his  own  thoughts,  the  more  effective  he  is  in  accom- 
plishing his  own  ends.  The  more  broadly  he  enters 
into  the  thoughts  of  others,  the  more  clearly  will  he 
understand  his  own  relation  to  nature  and  society. 

Through  the  medium  of  the  university  the  student 
is  brought  face  to  face  with  great  thoughts  and  great 
problems.  The  wise  men  of  all  ages  and  all  climes 
become  his  brothers,  and  the  consolations  of  philos- 
ophy to  him  are  not  meaningless  words,  but  living 
and  helpful  realities. 

The  university  is  a  source  of  personal  acquaint- 
ance with  the  men  and  women  who  shall  mold  the 
times  to  come.  The  university  "gathers  every  ray 
of  varied  genius  to  its  hospitable  halls,  by  their  con- 
centrated fires  to  strike  the  heart  of  youth  in  flame." 
Each  university  has  some  great  teacher,  at  least  some 
one  who  is  relatively  great.  A  great  teacher  leaves  a 
great  mark  on  every  student  whose  life  he  touches. 
In  my  own  education  nothing  meant  so  much  to  me 
as  the  contact  with  a  few  great  men  whom  I  knew  face 

62 


APOLOGY   FOR  AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 

to  face.  Of  these  I  place  first  Agassiz,  with  his 
abounding  life,  his  fearless  trust  in  God  and  man,  and 
his  vital  interest  in  everything  that  God  or  man  had 
done.  "There  is  no  hope  for  you,"  says  Thoreau, 
' '  unless  this  bit  of  sod  under  your  feet  is  the  best  for 
you  in  this  world,  in  any  world."  Of  such  robust 
optimism  was  the  spirit  of  Agassiz.  No  obstacle 
could  break  his  courage,  no  failure  could  dim  his 
faith.  To  feel  the  influence  and  to  share  the  help  of 
such  men  far  outweighs  the  cost  of  any  college  course, 
even  though  the  college  gave  nothing  else. 

But  there  were  many  more  among  my  teachers, 
each  great  in  his  degree.  I  cannot  take  the  time  to 
speak  of  each  in  turn,  nor  would  it  profit  you  to 
listen.  Two  names  may  suffice:  Andrew  Dickson 
White,  the  former  high-minded  and  enlightened  presi- 
dent of  Cornell,  the  ideal  of  our  class,  the  pioneer 
class  of  his  administration  in  the  new  university  of  his 
hands.  To  us  he  embodied  all  that  a  scholar  should 
be  in  the  life  of  the  Republic.  And  such  an  ideal  of 
the  scholar  in  statesmanship  President  White  remains 
to  us  today. 

The  other  name  is  that  of  James  Russell  Lowell. 
I  can  hardly  claim  him  as  my  teacher,  for  he  did  not 
know  me  by  name  or  face.  I  was  too  young  and  too 
raw  in  his  day  to  be  knowable.  Yet  his  rich  voice  and 
manly  figure  are  indelibly  fixed  in  my  memory,  and 
his  noble  face  rises  before  me  whenever  I  try  to  think 
of  the  duty  of  the  scholar  in  the  crises  of  the  day. 

63 


APOLOGY   FOR   AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY 

' '  Once  to  every  man  and  nation  comes  the  moment 
to  decide,"  and  to  have  known  Lowell  brings  a  pledge 
for  at  least  a  conscientious  decision. 

But  it  is  not  alone  through  the  teachers  that  the 
university  educates.  The  ' '  fellow  feeling  among  free 
spirits,"  which  has  been  called  the  essence  of  the 
German  university,  arises  among  the  students  as  well. 
Among  the  college  students  are  the  best  young  men 
and  w^omen  of  our  time.  They  shape  each  other's 
characters  and  mold  each  other's  work.  If  the  uni- 
versity does  nothing  else,  it  finds  its  justification  in  the 
friendships  which  it  gives.  In  Agassiz's  eulogy  on  his 
friend  and  helper,  Humboldt,  he  gives  a  most  striking 
account  of  the  influence  picked  men  exert  upon  each 
other.  Teachers  and  students  alike  in  the  University 
of  Munich  used  to  gather  in  Agassiz's  own  chamber, 
"museum,  laboratory,  library,  bedroom,  dining-room, 
fencing-room,  all  in  one."  Students  and  professors 
called  it  ' '  the  little  academy. ' ' 

Here  they  worked  and  talked  and  thought,  and 
the  discovery  of  one  became  the  property  of  all,  with 
the  same  cheerful  generosity  by  which  they  shared 
their  meals  and  their  earnings.  In  the  college  you 
find  the  men  you  trust  in  after  life,  and  one  who  does 
not  fail  you  there  will  never  after  give  you  cause  for 
regret. 

To  the  university  we  must  look  for  the  promotion 
of  true  democracy.  Its  function  as  a  part  of  public 
education  is  to  break  up  the  masses  that  they  may  be 

64 


APOLOGY    FOR    AMERICAN    UNIVERSITY 


masses  no  more,  but  living  men  and  women;  to  draw 
fortii  from  the  multitude  the  man.  The  mass  is  the 
real  (oe  of  democracy,  for  the  slave  in  all  ages  has 
woven  his  own  lash.  Where  men  are  driven  or  sold 
like  sheep,  there  the  tyrant  rules.  It  matters  not 
whether  the  tyrant  be  a  king  in  velvet  and  satin,  or  a 
ward  boss  in  a  slouch-hat  and  striped  waistcoat;  when 
individual  intelligence  does  not  rule,  men  are  gov- 
erned by  brute  force. 

The  function  of  democracy,  as  I  have  said  many 
times,  is  not  good  government.  Its  effect  is  to  stimu- 
late the  people  to  broader  outlook,  to  deeper  interest 
in  public  affairs.  It  is  not  to  make  good  government, 
but  to  make  good  citizens,  that  public  affairs  are  con- 
fided to  the  common  man.  The  feeling  of  caste  is 
fatal  to  democracy.  The  fundamental  tenet  of  civil 
freedom  is  equality  before  the  law.  In  other  relations 
it  matters  not  what  inequality  develops;  the  more  un- 
likeness  among  men  the  better,  because  the  more 
varied  the  power  and  talents.  But  unlikeness  is  not 
inequality.  As  "God  is  no  respecter  of  persons," 
so  the  law  must  not  be.  The  state  must  show  no 
favoritism.  It  knows  no  black  nor  white,  no  wise  nor 
simple,  no  bond  nor  free.  If  it  place  one  class  above 
another,  it  is  a  democracy  no  longer,  and  it  is  not  a 
democracy  when  any  class  of  men  tamely  accept  an 
inferior  place  as  theirs  by  right  of  birth. 

The  old  education  seemed  to  accentuate  the  ine- 
qualities among  men.     This  was  because  it  took  its  tra- 

^5 


APOLOGY  FOR  AMERICAN  UNIVERSITY 

ditions  from  aristocratic  England,  though  its  real  effect 
was  to  promote  democracy.  The  great  service  of  the 
state  university,  the  cap-sheaf  of  the  public  school 
system,  is  that  it  carries  the  university  into  democracy 
without  impairing  the  essential  qualities  of  either.  It 
furnishes  a  plain  way  for  every  student,  the  highest  as 
well  as  the  lowest,  from  the  commonest  schooling  to 
the  training  that  gives  the  highest  power.  So  long  as 
the  grass  does  not  grow  in  ' '  the  path  from  the  farm- 
house to  the  university, ' '  to  borrow  Ian  MacLaren'  s 
phrase,  so  long  is  the  Republic  safe.  So  long  as  the 
people  can  become  enlightened  and  wise,  rich  and 
poor  alike,  so  long  shall  government  of  the  people, 
by  the  people,  and  for  the  people  endure  upon  the 
earth. 

The  need  of  democracy  makes  a  special  demand 
upon  the  scholar.  ' '  Eternal  vigilance  is  the  price  of 
liberty,"  and  to  the  scholar  on  his  watch-tower  the 
people  look  for  this  vigilance.  It  is  the  scholar's  duty 
everywhere,  in  season  and  out  of  season,  to  uphold 
the  sacredness  of  truth.  He  must  possess,  to  quote 
Huxley's  words,  "some  knowledge,  to  the  certainty 
of  which  authority  could  add  or  take  away  neither  one 
jot  nor  tittle,  and  to  which  the  tradition  of  a  thousand 
years  is  but  as  the  hearsay  of  yesterday. ' '  The  truth 
it  is  the  scholar's  privilege  to  speak,  his  duty  to  pro- 
claim, and  that  he  does  this  is  the  best  justification  of 
the  university  from  which  he  drew  his  inspiration. 

"Above  all  sects  is  truth."     Above  all  parties  and 

66 


APOLOGY  FOR   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 

conventions,  above  all  pride  and  prejudice  and  passion, 
arise  the  teachings  of  nature,  the  lessons  of  human 
experience.  To  hear  these  teachings,  to  learn  these 
lessons,  is  the  function  of  the  university.  To  pro- 
claim them  wisely  is  the  function  of  the  scholar,  and 
it  is  his  mission  to  help  permeate  the  Republic  with 
his  scholarship.  The  university  must  place  as  fixed 
beacons  in  the  swaying  tides  of  democracy  those  men 
and  women  who  can  never  be  moved  by  feeble  cur- 
rents, who  know  what  to  do,  who  have  the  will  to  do 
it  and  the  courage  to  abide  the  consequences. 

And  now,  in  a  final  word,  I  touch  the  university's 
highest  value.  There  is  no  good  in  a  man's  work 
unless  the  man  himself  be  good.  The  highest  force 
of  the  university  lies  in  its  moral  training.  Not  in  its 
precepts  and  in  its  sermons,  not  by  ceremonies  and 
formulae,  are  men  influenced  for  good.  If  they  were, 
moral  culture  would  be  the  easiest  of  all  teaching. 
Nothing  costs  less  than  words.  But  the  experience 
of  the  ages  shows  that  words  count  for  little  in  mat- 
ters like  this.  It  is  the  contagion  of  high  thought,  of 
noble  purpose,  of  lofty  deed  that  "strikes  the  heart 
of  youth  in  flame."  "Science,"  says  William  Lowe 
Bryan,  "  knows  no  source  of  life  but  life.  If  virtue 
and  integrity  are  to  be  propagated,  it  must  be  by 
people  who  possess  them.  If  this  child  world  about 
us  that  we  know  and  love  is  to  grow  up  into  righteous 
manhood  and  womanhood,  it  must  see  how  righteous- 
ness looks  when  it    is  lived.     That  this  may  be  so, 

67 


APOLOGY   FOR   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 

what  task  have  we  but  to  garrison  our  state  witli  men 
and  women?  If  we  can  do  that,  if  we  can  have  in 
every  square  mile  of  our  country  a  man  or  woman 
whose  total  influence  is  a  civilizing-  power,  we  shall 
get  from  our  educational  system  all  that  it  can  give  or 
all  that  we  can  desire. ' ' 

Wisdom,  as  I  have  said  elsewhere,  is  knowing 
what  to  do  next.  Virtue  is  doing  it,  and  religion  is 
the  heart-impulse  that  finds  reason  for  wisdom  and 
virtue  in  harmony  with  the  first  cause  at  the  heart  of 
things.  To  these  matters  the  university  can  never  be 
indifferent.  Wisdom,  virtue  and  religion  alike  it  is 
its  province  to  cultivate  and  intensify.  It  can  accept 
no  shams  in  wisdom,  still  less  in  virtue  or  in  religion; 
but  a  life  without  these  is  the  greatest  sham  of  all. 
The  university  cannot  promote  virtue  and  piety  in  any 
machine  fashion.  If  the  college  stand  in  loco  parentis^ 
with  rod  in  hand  and  spy-glasses  on  its  nose,  it  will  not 
do  much  for  moral  training.  It  will  not  make  young 
men  moral  nor  religious  by  enforced  attendance  at 
church  or  at  prayer-meeting.  It  will  not  awaken  the 
spiritual  element  in  their  natures  by  any  system  of 
demerit  marks.  This  the  college  of  our  fathers  in 
English  fashion  tried  to  do,  and  with  such  ill  success 
that  the  university  of  today  bears  among  the  ignorant 
the  reproach  of  godlessness. 

What  the  university  can  do  is  along  manly 
lines.  It  can  cure  the  boy  of  petty  vices  and 
childish   trickery    by    making   him  a  man,   by  giving 


APOLOGY   FOR   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY 

him  higher  ideals,  more  serious  views  of  life.  It 
may  win  by  inspiration,  not  by  fear.  It  must 
strengthen  the  student  in  his  search  for  truth.  It 
must  encourage  manliness  in  him  through  the  putting 
away  of  childish  things.  Let  the  thoughts  of  the  stu- 
dent be  as  free  as  air.  Let  him  prove  all  things,  and 
he  will  hold  fast  to  that  which  is  good.  Give  him  a 
message  to  speak  to  others,  and  when  he  leaves  the 
university  you  need  not  fear  for  him,  not  the  world, 
nor  the  flesh,  nor  the  devil. 

The  universities  of  America  have  grown  enor- 
mously in  wealth  and  power  within  the  last  twenty- 
five  years.  The  next  twenty-five  years  will  tell  the 
same  story.  They  have  the  confidence  of  the  people 
because  they  deserve  its  confidence,  and  the  good 
citizens  of  the  Republic  must  give  them  trust  and  sup- 
port. In  the  university,  at  last,  the  history  of  democ- 
racy must  be  written. 


69 


IV. 

RELATIVE   VALUES    IN 
KNOWLEDGE. 

IT  IS  now  forty  years  since  Herbert  Spencer 
startled  the  educational  world  with  this  momen- 
tous question,  "What  knowledge  is  of  most 
worth?"  And.  the  schoolmen  of  that  day  in 
England  and  America  were  thrown  into  dismay  by  the 
question  and  its  implication.  For  to  many  of  them 
the  idea  had  never  occurred  that  any  knowledge  had 
any  worth  whatever.  The  value  of  higher  education 
in  their  eyes  was  mainly  that  of  class  distinction.  It 
marked  out  its  possessor  as  one  above  the  common 
mass.  It  was  the  badge  of  having  done  "the  proper 
thing."  It  conferred  for  life  upon  the  men  who 
received  it  the  same  satisfaction  which  is  ascribed  to 
the  "well-dressed  feeling"  among  women.  To  dem- 
onstrate its  excellence  required  no  analysis  of  its  com- 
ponent parts.  For  it  was  prescribed  by  the  highest 
authority  known  to  the  average  Englishman,  the  au- 
thority which  has  granted  him  the  blessings  of  royalty, 
of  nobility,  of  ecclesiasticism  —  the  authority  of  tra- 
dition. And  over  higher  education  in  England  forty 
years  ago  tradition  exercised  undisputed  sway.     The 


RELATIVE     VALUES     IN     KNOWLEDGE 

badges  of  higher  education  were  then  of  two  sorts  — 
the  pass  badge,  which  conveyed  social  prestige  only, 
and  the  honor  badge,  which  guaranteed  intellectual 
precedence,  as  none  could  bear  it  save  after  the  se- 
verest competitive  struggles.  Whether  these  struggles 
were  in  themselves  worthy,  whether  the  senior  wran- 
gler had  fought  for  anything  of  value  to  himself  or  to 
any  one  else,  few  people  gave  themselves  the  trouble  to 
inquire.     The  honor  of  wrangling  was  its  own  reward. 

But  these  few  who  did  inquire  led  the  intellectual 
progress  of  the  nation,  and  to  their  thoughts  and 
questionings  the  epoch-making  essay  of  Herbert 
Spencer  gave  voice.  "What  knowledge  is  of  most 
worth  ?  ' '  That  knowledge  may  have  intrinsic  value, 
Mr.  Spencer  insists.  If  this  be  true,  the  value  of 
some  knowledge  is  greater  than  that  of  some  other. 
Furthermore,  as  life  is  short,  and  force  is  limited,  the 
useful  knowledge  should  take  precedence  over  the 
less  useful,  the  real  over  the  conventional,  the  effective 
over  the  ornamental. 

It  is  clear  that  the  knowledge  is  of  most  worth 
which  can  be  most  directly  wrought  into  the  fabric  of 
our  lives.  That  discipline  is  most  valuable  which  will 
best  serve  us  in  ' '  quietly  unfolding  our  own  individ- 
ualities. ' ' 

Thus  far  no  standard  had  been  agreed  upon  in 
these  regards,  nor  did  those  who  had  the  affairs  of 
higher  education  in  charge  recognize  even  the  pos- 
sible existence  of  such  a  standard.     To  substitute  a 

71 


R  E  L  A  T  I  \^  E    \^\  L  U  E  S     IN     K  N  O  W'  L  E  D  G  E 

rational  curriculum  for  a  traditional  one,  it  is  neces- 
sary, Mr.  Spencer  maintained,  to  consider  all  these 
matters  soberly.  ' '  We  must  settle  which  things  it 
concerns  us  most  to  know;  or  to  use  a  word  of 
Bacon's,  now  unfortunately  obsolete,  —  we  must  de- 
termine the  relative  value  of  knowledges." 

There  are  some  forms  of  learning  which  can  lead 
to  no  generalizations,  and  can  have  no  bearings,  direct 
or  indirect,  on  the  affairs  of  life.  The  study  of  old 
coins  is  given  by  Spencer  as  an  illustration  of  this. 
Perhaps  better  examples  could  be  drawn  from  our 
ordinary  courses  of  study. 

Other  forms  of  learning  directly  influence  life.  It 
is  the  tendency  of  all  knowledge  to  pass  over  into 
action,  for  a  thought  is  not  completed  until  it  is 
wrought  into  deed.  Therefore,  that  education  which 
leads  men  to  better  deeds  is  a  gain  to  the  individual 
and  to  the  community.  It  is  well  for  the  individual 
and  the  community  to  give  heed  to  this  matter.  We 
should  not  merely  think  that  a  form  of  education  is 
good,  trusting  to  tradition  or  to  chance  opinion.  W^e 
should  know  what  it  really  signifies,  and  we  should 
not  pass  by  the  problem  because  its  solution  is  not 
easy.  No  social  function  or  act  is  so  important  as 
education.  In  the  schools  of  today  the  history,  per- 
sonal, social  and  political,  of  the  future  is  in  large 
part  written.  Therefore,  no  good  thing  is  so  desir- 
able as  good  schools,  no  reform  so  far-reaching  as 
reform  in  education. 

72 


RELATIX'E  \'ALUES  IN  KNOWLEDGE 

Mr.  Spencer  proceeds  to  ' '  classify  in  the  order  of 
their  importance  the  leading  kinds  of  activity  which 
constitute  human  life.  These  may  be  naturally 
arranged  into:  i.  Those  activities  which  directly 
minister  to  self-preservation.  2.  Those  activities 
which,  by  securing  the  necessities  of  life,  indirectly 
minister  to  self-preservation.  3.  Those  activities 
which  have  for  their  end  the  rearing  and  discipline 
of  offspring.  4.  Those  activities  which  are  involved 
in  the  maintenance  of  proper  social  and  political  rela- 
tions. 5.  Those  miscellaneous  activities  which  make 
up  the  leisure  part  of  life  devoted  to  the  gratification 
of  the  tastes  and  feelings. ' ' 

These  categories  of  effort  are  thus  arranged,  Mr. 
Spencer  claims,  in  something  like  their  true  order  of 
subordination.  It  is  evident  that  without  personal 
sanity  and  safety,  there  can  be  no  care  for  others.  It 
is  clear  that  the  development  of  the  family  precedes 
that  of  the  state,  and  that  the  performance  of  per- 
sonal duties  in  general  has  first  claim  over  the 
enjoyment  of  art  and  the  cultivation  of  the  pleas- 
ures of  leisure.  It  is  again  evident  that  "acquire- 
ment of  any  kind  has  two  values — value  as  knowl- 
edge and  value  as  discipline, ' '  and  both  these  values 
must  be  considered  in  estimating  their  final  influence 
on  conduct. 

In  the  matter  of  self-preservation,  the  common 
animal  instincts  are  sufiicient  to  warn  us  against  the 
grosser  dangers.     But   the  less  e\ident  evils  are  not 


RELATIVE    VALUES     IN     KNOWLEDGE 


the  less  real,  and  against  many  of  these  natural  in- 
stinct offers  no  protection.  This  is  especially  true  of 
the  dangers  which  arise  from  the  complexities  of  social 
life,  into  which  our  gregarious  impulses  tend  to  drag 
us,  for  with  most  men  the  instinct  to  follow  the  mass 
is  more  powerful  than  the  animal  mstincts  of  warning. 
The  evils  of  bad  food,  bad  air,  of  the  use  of  stimu- 
lants and  narcotics,  of  dissipation  and  vice,  are  mat- 
ters which  an  educated  will  ought  to  help  us  to  avoid. 
On  all  sides  we  find  chronic  ailment  or  physical  weak- 
ness which  wisdom  should  have  prevented.  Hence 
our  education  should  strive  to  give  wisdom.  Weari- 
ness, gloom,  waste,  ill  health,  due  to  avoidable  causes, 
are  met  everywhere  about  us,  yet  against  these  our 
system  of  education  provides  no  adequate  safeguard. 

"Is  it  not  clear, ' '  says  Mr.  Spencer,  ' ' that  the 
physical  sins,  partly  our  forefathers'  and  partly  our 
own,  which  produce  this  ill  health  deduct  more  from 
complete  living  than  anything  else  ? ' '  Besides  the  de- 
terioration of  life,  we  have  the  shortening  of  existence. 
"If  we  call  to  mind  how  far  the  average  duration  of 
life  falls  below  the  possible  duration,  we  see  how 
immense  is  the  loss.  When  to  the  numerous  partial 
deductions  which  bad  health  entails,  we  add  this  great 
final  deduction,  it  results  that  ordinarily  more  than 
one-half  of  life  is  thrown  away." 

From  this  Mr.  Spencer  concludes  "that,  as  vigor- 
ous health  and  its  accompanying  high  spirits  are 
larger  elements  of  happiness  than  any  other  things 

74 


RELATIVE    VALUES    IN    KNOWLEDGE 

whatsoever,  the  teaching  how  to  maintain  them  is  a 
teaching  that  should  yield  in  moment  to  no  other 
whatever. ' ' 

In  this  connection  we  may  note  that  it  is  not  merely 
the  rules  of  hygiene  which  are  needed.  It  is  such  a 
knowledge  of  the  laws  of  bodily  life  as  will  enable  the 
student  to  develop  his  own  rules  of  health.  Hygiene 
is  applied  physiology,  but  the  physiology  must  come 
first  else  it  cannot  be  intelligently  applied.  The  edu- 
cated man  should  be  placed  in  position  to  realize  that 
a  science  of  physiology  exists  and  that  whatever  is 
done  to  the  body  has  its  certain  inevitable  effect.  We 
would  not  have  "every  man  his  own  physician,"  but 
we  would  give  every  man  such  a  basis  of  scientific 
knowledge  and  method  that  he  could  regulate  his  own 
life  safely  and  such  that  in  critical  cases  he  could  rec- 
ognize the  presence  of  scientific  knowledge  in  others. 
He  should  have  the  training  which  would  enable  him 
to  tell  a  physician  from  a  quack. 

Most  people,  even  those  called  educated,  fail  to 
realize  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  science  or  that 
their  own  ignorance  of  law  is  not  so  good  as  some 
other  man's  wisdom.  A  little  real  knowledge  of  their 
own  is  needed  to  give  respect  for  real  knowledge. 
Because  of  the  fundamental  value  to  the  individual, 
hygiene,  with  the  laws  and  facts  of  physiology  and 
biology,  should  have  a  leading  part  in  any  well- 
ordered  scheme  of  education. 

Under  the  second  head  come  the  details  of  profes- 

75 


RELATIVE    VALUES     IN     KNOWLEDGE 

sional  training  and  of  preparation  for  the  special  work 
of  life.  Here  again  science  plays  a  vastly  greater 
part  than  the  special  activities  which  at  the  time  of 
Mr.  Spencer's  essay  monopolized  higher  education  in 
England  and  America.  The  sacred  Tripos  of  Latin, 
Greek  and  mathematics  touched  few  matters  vital  to 
the  student's  after-life.  All  practical  success  in  almost 
any  of  the  specialized  lines  of  effort  must  stand  on  a 
foundation  of  science.  Physics,  chemistry,  biolog}', 
mechanics,  rest  at  the  base  of  all  the  great  industries. 
Yet  the  universities  made  scanty  provision  for  these 
subjects,  and  those  who  sought  them  were  forced  to 
devote  most  of  their  time  to  artificial  or  irrelevant 
studies  which  they  did  not  want.  All  this  involved  a 
great  waste,  and  the  waste  was  twofold.  Science  grew 
up  outside  of  the  university  and  lacked  what  the  uni- 
versity alone  could  give.  The  practical  men  of  science 
were  self-taught  and  therefore  imperfectly  taught. 
They  missed  the  university  culture,  its  breadth  and 
severity  of  discipline,  and  they  were  likely  to  miss  at 
the  same  time  the  essence  of  science,  the  method  of 
patient  investigation.  The  habit  of  snap  judgment 
and  the  method  of  the  rule  of  thumb  condemned  most 
of  them  to  mediocrity.  Here  and  there  some  strug- 
gling genius,  some  Faraday  or  Huxley,  was  able  to 
rise  to  the  height  of  the  university-trained  men  of 
science  of  Germany.  But  these  cases  were  excep- 
tional. Men  of  science  in  general  were  depriv^ed  of 
the  university  training  they  needed,  because  the  uni- 

76 


RELATIVE    VALUES     IN     KNOWLEDGE 


versity  was  given  to  play  rather  than  to  work,  to  con- 
ventionalities rather  than  to  realities. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  man  trained  in  the  univer- 
sity came  into  professional  or  scientific  studies  too  late 
for  the  best  results.  To  acquire  skill  with  the  micro- 
scope or  scalpel,  one  must  get  at  it  betimes.  It  is  too 
late  to  wait  till  he  has  mastered  the  classics  of  Greece 
and  Rome.  So  with  skill  in  chemical  experiment  and 
physical  manipulation.  The  student  must  have  hand 
and  eye  and  brain  alert  before  the  formative  period  of 
youth  is  over.  He  must  keep  in  touch  with  his  future 
career  throughout  his  university  course  if  this  course 
is  to  be  a  real  help  in  life. 

It  is  surely  a  mistake  to  have  any  great  break  in 
the  continuity  of  education.  The  sooner  one  knows 
what  he  is  good  for  and  strikes  out  for  it  the  better, 
though  he  rarely  regrets  the  length  or  the  fulness  of 
his  preparation  after  his  career  is  once  decided.  The 
chosen  career  gives  a  clue  through  the  labyrinth  of 
knowledge.  It  does  not  matter  how  long  the  way  if 
all  the  while  he  has  a  clue  to  follow.  The  ability  to 
see  one's  way  to  realities  through  a  multitude  of  non- 
essentials is  the  basis  of  personal  success. 

The  first  relation  of  the  child  to  external  things  is 
expressed  in  this:  What  can  I  do  with  it?  What  is 
its  relation  to  me?  The  sensation  goes  over  into 
thought,  the  thought  into  action.  Thus  the  impres- 
sion of  the  object  is  built  into  the  Httle  universe  of  the 
mind.     The  object  and  the  action  it  implies  are  closely 

77 


RELATIVE     VALUES     IN     KNOWLEDGE 

associated.  As  more  objects  are  apprehended,  more 
complex  relations  arise,  but  the  primal  condition 
remains,  What  can  I  do  with  it?  Sensation,  thought, 
action  —  this  is  the  natural  sequence  of  each  com- 
pleted mental  process.  As  volition  passes  over  into 
action,  so  does  science  into  art,  knowledge  into  power, 
wisdom  into  virtue. 

By  the  study  of  realities  wisdom  is  built  up.  In 
the  relations  of  objects  he  can  touch  and  move,  the 
child  comes  to  find  the  limitations  of  his  powers,  the 
laws  which  govern  phenomena,  and  to  which  his 
actions  must  be  in  obedience.  So  long  as  he  deals 
with  realities,  these  laws  stand  in  their  proper  relation. 
* '  So  simple,  so  natural,  so  true, ' '  says  Agassiz. 
"This  is  the  charm  of  dealing  with  nature  herself. 
She  brings  us  back  to  absolute  truth  so  often  as  we 
wander. ' ' 

So  long  as  a  child  is  led  from  one  reality  to 
another,  never  lost  in  words  or  in  abstractions,  so 
long  this  natural  relation  remains.  What  is  it  to  me  ? 
is  the  basis  of  personal  virtue.  What  can  I  do  with 
it?  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom. 

It  is  the  function  of  science  to  find  out  the  real 
nature  of  the  universe.  Its  purpose  is  to  eliminate 
the  personal  equation  and  the  human  equation  in 
statements  of  truth.  By  methods  of  precision  in 
thought  and  instruments  of  precision  in  observation, 
it  seeks  to  make  our  knowledge  of  the  small,  the  dis- 
tant, the  invisible,  the  mysterious,  as  accurate  as  our 

78 


RELATIVE    VALUES    IN     KNOWLEDGE 

knowledge  of  the  common  things  men  have  handled 
for  ages.  It  seeks  to  make  our  knowledge  of  com- 
mon things  exact  and  precise,  that  exactness  and  pre- 
cision may  be  translated  into  action.  The  ultimate 
end  of  science,  as  well  as  its  initial  impulse,  is  the 
regulation  of  human  conduct.  To  make  right  action 
possible  and  prevalent  is  the  function  of  science.  The 
"world  as  it  is"  is  its  province.  In  proportion  as 
our  actions  conform  to  the  conditions  of  the  world  as 
it  is,  do  we  find  the  world  beautiful,  glorious,  divine. 
The  truth  of  the  world  as  it  is  must  be  the  ultimate 
inspiration  of  art,  poetry  and  religion.  The  world  as 
men  have  agreed  to  say  it  is,  is  quite  another  matter. 
The  less  our  children  hear  of  this,  the  less  they  will 
have  to  unlearn  in  their  future  development. 

When  a  child  is  taken  from  nature  to  the  schools, 
he  is  usually  brought  into  an  atmosphere  of  conven- 
tionality. Here  he  is  not  to  do,  but  to  imitate;  not  to 
see,  nor  to  handle,  nor  to  create,  but  to  remember. 
He  is,  moreover,  to  remember  not  his  own  realities, 
but  the  written  or  spoken  ideas  of  others.  He  is 
dragged  through  a  wilderness  of  grammar,  with  thick- 
ets of  diacritical  marks,  into  the  desert  of  metaphysics. 
He  is  taught  to  do  right,  not  because  right  action  is  in 
the  nature  of  things,  the  nature  of  himself  and  the 
things  about  him,  but  because  he  will  be  punished 
somehow  if  he  does  not. 

He  is  given  a  medley  of  words  without  ideas.  He 
is  taught  declensions  and  conjugations  without  number 

79 


RELATIVE     VALUES     IN    KNOWLEDGE 

in  his  own  and  other  tongues.  He  learns  things  easily 
by  rote;  so  his  teachers  fill  him  with  rote  -  learning. 
Hence,  grammar  and  language  have  become  stereo- 
typed as  teaching,  without  a  thought  as  to  whether  undi- 
gested words  may  or  may  not  be  intellectual  poison. 
And  as  the  good  heart  depends  upon  the  good  brain, 
undigested  ideas  become  moral  poison  as  well.  No  one 
can  tell  how  much  of  the  bad  morals  and  worse  manners 
of  the  conventional  college  boy  of  the  past  has  been 
due  to  intellectual  dyspepsia  from  undigested  words. 
' '  Sciences  can  be  learned  by  rote,  but  wisdom  not. ' ' 
This  is  an  old  adage,  going  back  to  Tristram  Shandy. 
By  rote  one  can  learn  sciences  but  not  science. 

In  such  manner  the  child  is  bound  to  lose  his 
orientation  as  to  the  forces  which  surround  him.  If 
he  does  not  recover  it,  he  will  spend  his  life  in  a  world 
of  mixed  fancies  and  realities.  Nonsense  will  seem 
half  truth,  and  his  appreciation  of  truth  will  be 
vitiated  by  lack  of  clearness  of  definition  —  by  its 
close  relation  to  nonsense.  That  this  is  no  slight 
defect,  can  be  shown  in  every  community.  There  is 
no  intellectual  craze  so  absurd  as  not  to  have  a  fol- 
lowing among  educated  men  and  women.  There  is 
no  scheme  for  the  renovation  of  the  social  order  so 
silly  that  educated  men  will  not  invest  their  money  in 
it.  There  is  no  medical  fraud  so  shameless  that  edu- 
cated men  will  not  give  it  their  certificate.  There  is 
no  nonsense  so  unscientific  that  men  called  educated 
will  not  accept  it  as  science. 

80 


RELATIVE    VALUES     IN     KNOWLEDGE 

It  should  be  a  function  of  the  schools  to  build  up 
common  sense.  Folly  should  be  crowded  out  of  the 
schools.  We  have  furnished  costly  lunatic  asylums 
for  its  accommodation.  That  our  schools  are  in  a 
degree  responsible  for  current  follies,  there  can  be  no 
doubt.  We  have  many  teachers  who  have  never  seen 
a  truth  in  their  lives.  There  are  many  who  have  never 
felt  the  impact  of  an  idea.  There  are  many  who  have 
lost  their  own  orientation  in  their  youth,  and  who 
have  never  since  been  able  to  point  out  the  sunrise  to 
others.  It  is  no  extravagance  of  language  to  say  that 
diacritical  marks  lead  to  the  cocaine  habit;  nor  that 
the  ethics  of  metaphysics  points  the  way  to  the  higher 
foolishness.  There  are  many  links  in  the  chain  of  de- 
cadence, but  its  finger-posts  all  point  downward. 

For  the  group  of  activities  relating  to  the  family, 
the  education  of  forty  years  ago  made  no  sort  of  prep- 
aration. Mr.  Spencer  imagines  some  antiquary  puz- 
zling over  a  pile  of  our  school-books  and  college 
examination  questions  and  trying  to  derive  from  them 
the  theory  of  education  on  which  they  were  based. 
' '  This  must  have  been  the  curriculum  for  their  celi- 
bates, ' '  we  may  fancy  him  concluding.  ' '  I  perceive 
here  an  elaborate  preparation  for  many  things :  espe- 
cially for  reading  the  books  of  extinct  nations  and  of 
coexisting  nations  (from  which  indeed  it  seems  clear 
that  these  people  had  very  little  worth  reading  in 
their  own  tongue);  but  I  find  no  reference  whatever 
to  the  bringing  up  of  children.     They  could  not  have 

gi 


RELATIVE     VALUES     IN     KNOWLEDGE 

been  so  absurd  as  to  omit  all  training  for  this  gravest 
of  responsibilities.  Evidently,  then,  this  was  the 
school  course  of  one  of  their  monastic  orders." 

As  a  result  of  this  lack  of  knowledge,  we  have 
thousands  of  needless  deaths  in  childhood,  other  thou- 
sands of  those  who  survive  feeble  and  who  might  have 
been  strong  —  events  commonly  regarded  as  misfor- 
tunes, " as  a  visitation  of  providence."  "Thinking 
after  the  prevalent  chaotic  fashion,  they  assume  that 
these  evils  come  without  causes :  or  that  the  causes 
are  supernatural. ' '  Of  a  piece  with  the  ignorance  of 
the  basis  of  physical  well-being  in  the  family,  is  the 
carelessness  of  its  intellectual  and  moral  well-being. 
The  unadapted  education  of  the  father,  the  frivolous 
training  of  the  mother,  show  their  natural  result  in 
neglected  or  wrongly  educated  children.  The  school 
is  an  adjunct  to  the  home,  a  continuation  of  the  envi- 
ronment of  care  which  the  parents  bestow  on  the 
children.  If  the  home  knows  no  wisdom  in  its  rela- 
tion to  the  child,  the  school,  which  is  an  outgrowth 
from  parental  interest,  will  not  do  any  better.  And 
in  the  education  of  forty  years  ago,  Mr.  Spencer  found 
no  fitness  for  the  development  of  wise  parenthood. 
There  existed  no  reason  why  the  senior  wrangler  of 
Oxford  should  be  wiser  as  a  father,  or  the  prize  pupil 
of  the  finishing  school  happier  as  a  mother,  than  the 
most  illiterate  peasant  of  the  English  fields. 

Equally  inadequate  was  the  training  for  citizenship. 
Economics  as  a  science  had  no  place  in  the  curriculum. 

82 


RELATIVE    VALUES    IN     KNOWLEDGE 

Questions  of  justice,  administration  or  jurisprudence 
received  little  attention  in  the  universities,  while  in 
the  study  of  history  the  realities  were  neglected,  and 
the  mind  was  filled  with  useless  names,  dates,  details 
of  wanton  battles  and  the  gossip  of  the  idle.  ' '  Fa- 
miliarity with  court  intrigues,  plots,  usurpations,  or 
the  like,  and  with  all  the  personalities  accompanying 
them,  aids  very  little  in  elucidating  the  principles  on 
which  national  welfare  depends. ' '  The  great  mass  of 
so-called  historical  facts  could  in  no  way  influence  our 
actions  in  life,  could  not  help  us  in  learning  how  to 
live  completely.  Such  are  ' '  facts  from  which  no  con- 
clusions could  be  drawn,  unorganizable  facts,  and 
therefore  facts  which  can  be  of  no  use  in  establishing 
principles  of  conduct,  which  is  the  chief  use  of  facts." 
' '  What  in  history  it  really  concerns  us  to  know  is  the 
natural  history  of  society, ' '  and  for  this  no  provision 
was  then  made  in  the  schools  of  England,  nor  were 
the  professors  of  that  day  acquainted  with  its  precepts 
or  in  sympathy  with  its  teachings. 

In  political  and  social  relations  the  university 
should  be  the  center  of  progress.  From  its  re- 
searches should  come  gain  to  the  individual  man,  the 
growth  of  rational  democracy.  The  universities  of 
England  have  been,  on  the  other  hand,  the  centers 
of  reaction.  They  were  forty  years  ago  wholly  given 
over  to  mediaevalism.  The  spirit  of  caste  found  in 
them  its  strongest  advocates,  and  their  influence  was 
always   on   the   side   of  larger  power  for  those  who 

83 


RELATIVE    VALUES    IN     KNOWLEDGE 

constituted  the  privileged  classes.  When  this  is  true,  the 
university  is  not  doing  its  part  to  make  good  citizens 
of  its  students.  Nor  could  it  do  so  where  the  story 
of  the  privileged  classes  constitutes  the  only  history 
with  which  it  tries  to  deal. 

In  the  fifth  division  of  human  activities,  esthetic 
culture  and  the  charms  of  leisure  hours,  Mr.  Spencer 
finds  the  current  system  of  education  scarcely  less 
defective.  These  matters  constitute  the  flower  of  edu- 
cation. The  florist  cultivates  the  plant  for  the  sake  of 
the  flower,  but  he  knows  that  without  care  of  the  roots 
and  leaves  the  production  of  the  flower  is  impossible. 
Just  as  roots  and  stem  and  leaves  precede  the  flower 
and  are  necessary  to  it,  a  flower  being  a  branch 
transformed  in  the  interests  of  beauty,  so  must  the 
production  of  healthy  civilized  life  precede  esthetic 
culture. 

But  the  current  education  aims  directly  at  the 
flower.  It  neglects  the  plant  for  the  sake  of  it.  "In 
anxiety  for  elegance  it  forgets  substance."  "Accom- 
plishments, the  fine  arts,  belles-lettres  and  all  those 
things  which  are  the  efflorescence  of  civilization  should 
be  wholly  subordinate  to  that  knowledge  and  disci- 
pline on  which  civilization  rests. ' '  Moreover,  ' '  the 
highest  art  of  every  kind  is  based  on  science,  —  with- 
out science  there  can  be  neither  perfect  production 
nor  full  appreciation."  "Innate  faculty  alone  will 
not  sufiice,  but  must  have  the  aid  of  organized  train- 
ing.    Intuition  will  do  much  but  it  will  not  do  all. 


RELATIVE    VALUES    IN     KNOWLEDGE 

Only  when  genius  is  married  to  science  can  the  high- 
est results  be  produced." 

Thus  Mr.  Spencer  comes  to  the  final  answer  to  his 
question:  "What  knowledge  is  of  most  worth?" 
And  to  this  question  as  a  whole  and  to  all  parts  of  it 
he  finds  one  answer :     ' '  Science. ' ' 

Science  is  organized  knowledge.  It  should  take 
precedence  on  the  one  hand  over  knowledge  that  is 
disorganized,  and  on  the  other  over  classified  informa- 
tion of  whatever  sort  which  is  merely  conventional, 
not  resting  on  the  eternal  verities,  nor  pointing  the 
way  to  wiser  conduct  of  life. 

After  this  rapid  survey  of  Mr.  Spencer's  position, 
we  may  raise  two  inquiries.  What  change  of  per- 
spective must  we  make  as  a  result  of  forty  years  of 
activity  in  education  ?  Do  the  keen  criticisms  of  forty 
years  ago  hold  against  the  work  of  the  American  uni- 
versity of  today? 

As  to  the  first  matter,  the  point  of  view  seems 
changed  in  one  respect.  Throughout  his  essay  Mr. 
Spencer  seems  to  aim  at  building  the  ideal  curricu- 
lum, the  course  of  study  best  suited  to  the  develop- 
ment and  happiness  of  the  average  cultivated  man. 
The  fact  that  there  are  other  types  of  men  than  the 
average,  he  seems  in  some  measure  to  overlook. 
There  are  some  men,  for  example,  who  are  born  to 
minister  to  the  esthetic  feelings  of  others  and  to  these 
alone.  There  are  some  men,  "Greek-minded  and 
Roman-minded  men,"  as  Emerson  called  them,  who 

8S 


RELATIVE     VALUES     IN    KNOWLEDGE 

will  find  no  surer  road  to  culture  and  effectiveness 
than  the  one  trodden  in  Oxford  and  Cambridge  half  a 
century  ago.  The  studies  that  ' '  open,  invigorate  and 
enrich  the  mind,"  to  borrow  a  phrase  of  Macaulay, 
can  never  be  obsolete  with  those  whom  they  thus 
affect.  The  thoroughness  and  continuity  of  these 
courses  at  their  best  gives  something  of  the  exactness 
of  knowledge  and  loyalty  to  truth  which  characterize 
the  man  of  science.  To  force  a  musician  or  a  poet  or 
a  classicist  to  traverse  the  whole  range  of  the  sciences 
might  be  as  unwise  or  as  futile  as  to  keep  a  Faraday 
writing  Latin  verses.  Moreover,  on  the  exactness  of 
this  training  in  the  old  Tripos  many  great  investigators 
have  based  the  thoroughness  of  their  methods.  It  is, 
again,  not  needful  for  all  men  to  learn  all  science.  If 
it  be  needful,  it  is  impossible.  From  one  science  the 
methods  of  all  science  may  be  learned.  Respect  for 
knowledge  is  one  of  the  noblest  lessons  which  real 
knowledge  teaches. 

In  other  words,  Mr.  Spencer  does  not  seem  clearly 
to  realize  that  each  course  of  study  must  be  individual. 
Each  man  should  follow,  as  near  as  may  be,  that  line 
of  effort  which  will  do  the  most  for  him,  which  will 
enable  him  to  realize  the  best  possibilities  of  his  own 
life.  There  is  no  single  curriculum,  no  ideal  curricu- 
lum, and  any  prearranged  course  of  advanced  study 
is  an  affront  to  the  mind  of  the  real  student.  We 
may  admit  that  the  great  need  of  civilized  man  in 
each  of  Mr,  Spencer's  five  categories  is  science.     But 

86 


RELATIVE     VALUES     IN     KNOWLEDGE 

the  need  is  rather  that  science  should  exist  in  the  com- 
munity, that  men  should  realize  the  value  of  exact 
knowledge  and  respect  its  teachings.  Among  men 
must  exist  a  division  of  labor.  No  one  man  can 
master  even  a  single  branch  of  science.  Mastery 
means  willingness  to  forego  knowledge  in  other  fields. 
A  fixed  curriculum  even  in  science,  covering  a  wide 
range,  would  necessitate  superficiality  in  all.  The  real 
need,  as  indicated  by  Mr.  Spencer,  is  therefore  met 
by  full  provision  for  the  teaching  of  each  of  the 
sciences  he  names  and  many  others,  while  among 
these  the  student  is  free  to  choose  for  himself.  We 
ask  not  that  science  be  placed  in  the  curriculum,  for 
we  can  tolerate  no  curriculum.  The  course  of  study 
itself  is  a  relic  of  mediaevalism.  We  ask  that  science 
be  made  accessible  to  all  and  in  all  stages  of  educa- 
tion.    The  rest  will  take  care  of  itself. 

A  minor  criticism  is  this.  Mr.  Spencer  seems  to 
lay  all  stress  on  the  subject  and  to  say  little  of  the 
teacher.  He  could  have  shown  the  unfitness  of  the 
teaching  force  as  readily  as  the  unfitness  of  the  sub- 
jects taught.  In  fact,  the  two  deficiencies  go  together. 
A  true  teacher,  thorough,  alert,  devoted,  is  not  a  re- 
actionist. He  will  not  place  the  millineries  of  culture 
above  the  realities,  and  dead  conventionalities  above 
the  contact  with  the  living  laws  of  God.  Wherever  a 
great  teacher  has  arisen  under  any  system  in  any  sub- 
ject, something  of  the  facts  and  methods  of  science 
has  come   in   with  him.     In  the  very  day  in  which 

87 


R  E  L  A  T  I  \'  E    VALUES     IN     KNOWLEDGE 

Spencer  wrote,  Agassiz  taught  science  in  Harvard, 
both  subject  and  method  being-  dealt  with  in  the  most 
modern  fashion,  one  on  which  the  twentieth  century, 
or  the  twenty- fifth,  can  offer  no  improvement. 

Let  me  recall  the  discussion,  also  some  forty  years 
old,  between  Emerson  and  Agassiz. 

Emerson,  himself  one  of  the  sanest  and  broadest 
of  men,  saw  in  the  work  of  Agassiz  elements  of 
danger,  whereby  the  time-honored  symmetry  of  Har- 
vard might  be  destroyed.  In  a  lecture  on  universi- 
ties, in  Boston,  Emerson  made  some  such  statement 
as  this:  That  natural  history  was  "  getting  too  great 
an  ascendency  at  Harvard ' ' ;  that  it  ' '  w^as  out  of  pro- 
portion to  the  other  departments."  And  he  hinted 
that  ' '  a  check-rein  would  not  be  amiss  on  the  enthu- 
siastic young  professor  who  is  responsible  for  this. ' ' 

"Do  you  not  see,"  Agassiz  wrote  to  Emerson, 
' '  that  the  way  to  bring  about  a  well-proportioned 
development  of  all  the  resources  of  the  university  is 
not  to  check  the  natural  history  department,  but  to 
stimulate  all  the  others?  Not  that  the  zoological 
school  grows  too  fast,  but  that  the  others  do  not  grow 
fast  enough?  This  sounds  invidious  and  perhaps 
boastful  somewhat;  but  it  is  you,"  he  said,  "and  not 
I,  who  have  instituted  the  comparison.  It  strikes  me 
that  you  have  not  hit  upon  the  best  remedy  for  this 
want  of  balance.  If  symmetry  is  to  be  obtained  by 
cutting  down  the  most  vigorous  growth,  it  seems  to 
me  it  would  be  better  to  have  a  little  irregularity  here 


RELATIVE     VALUES     IN     KNOWLEDGE 


and  there.  In  stimulating,  by  every  means  in  my 
power,  the  growth  of  the  museum  and  the  means  of 
education  connected  with  it,  I  am  far  from  having  a 
selfish  wish  to  see  my  own  department  tower  above 
the  others.  I  wish  that  every  one  of  my  colleagues 
would  make  it  hard  for  me  to  keep  up  with  him;  and 
there  are  some,  I  am  happy  to  say,  who  are  ready  to 
run  a  race  with  me." 

In  these  words  of  Agassiz  may  be  seen  the  keynote 
of  modern  university  progress.  The  university  should 
be  the  great  refuge-hut  on  the  ultimate  boundaries  of 
knowledge,  from  which,  daily  and  weekly,  adventur- 
ous bands  set  out  on  voyages  of  discovery.  It  should 
be  the  Upernavik  from  which  Polar  travelers  draw 
their  supplies,  and  as  the  shoreless  sea  of  the  unknown 
meets  us  on  every  side,  the  same  house  of  refuge  and 
supply  will  serve  for  a  thousand  different  exploring 
parties,  moving  out  in  every  direction  into  the  infinite 
ocean.  This  is  the  university  ideal  of  the  future. 
Some  day  it  will  be  felt  as  a  loss  and  a  crime  if  any 
one  who  could  be  an  explorer  is  forced  to  become 
anything  else.  And  even  then,  after  countless  ages 
of  education  and  scientific  progress,  the  true  univer- 
sity will  still  stand  on  the  boundaries,  its  walls  still 
washed  by  the  same  unending  sea,  the  boundless 
ocean  of  possible  human  knowledge. 

Emerson  once  wrote  to  his  daughter:  "  It  matters 
little  what  your  studies  are:  it  all  lies  in  who  your 
teacher  is."     For   he   saw  clearly  one   of  the   most 

89 


RELATIVE    VALUES     IN     KNOWLEDGE 

important  facts  in  education,  that  a  great  teacher  never 
fails  to  leave  a  great  mark  on  every  student  whose  life 
he  touches. 

The  essential  character  of  the  university  is  Lehr- 
freiheit,  the  freedom  of  the  teacher  to  give  out  the  best 
that  is  in  him,  and  Lernfreihcit,  the  freedom  of  the 
student  to  demand  the  best  that  the  teacher  can  give. 
The  one  develops  the  other.  The  freedom  of  the 
student  to  ask  what  he  needs  stimulates  the  teacher  to 
give  what  he  demands.  The  teacher  who  can  give  his 
best  and  find  it  appreciated  forthwith  rises  to  higher 
levels  of  power  and  the  standard  of  his  associates 
must  rise  to  keep  pace  w^ith  him. 

Do  the  criticisms  of  Herbert  Spencer  of  forty 
years  ago  apply  to  the  American  university  of  today? 
Are  the  fundamentals  of  self-preservation,  profes- 
sional soundness,  family  integrity,  good  citizenship, 
sacrificed  to  a  conventional  culture,  part  aesthetic,  part 
aristocratic,  part  traditional,  and  in  all  ways  remote 
from  the  needs  of  life?  To  say  that  this  is  not  true  in 
the  American  university  of  today,  is  to  say  that  its 
work  is  democratic,  practical,  scientific  and  free. 
That  it  IS  all  this,  I  believe  we  can  readily  show,  and 
the  facts  readily  appear  m  the  records  of  those  institu- 
tions which  have  been  free  to  develop  with  the  growth 
of  the  Republic.  We  may  take  Harvard  University 
as  an  example,  the  oldest  and  best  established,  and  on 
the  whole  the  most  typical.  Its  ideals  are  certainly 
very  different  from  those  of  Oxford  forty  years  ago, 

90 


RELATIVE    VALUES    IN     KNOWLEDGE 

equally  different  from  those  of  the  old  Harvard.  In 
the  first  place,  the  institution  is  essentially  democratic, 
not  aristocratic.  Its  work  is  planned  to  meet  the 
needs  of  the  actual  people,  not  to  separate  a  choice 
few  as  a  class  apart.  Its  function  is  to  fill  democracy 
with  men  fitted  to  make  the  rule  of  the  people  the 
best  government  that  exists.  And  this  fact  the  people 
fully  appreciate.  It  is  the  sons  of  men,  not  the  sons 
of  aristocrats,  who  throng  the  halls  of  Harvard.  The 
large  numbers  testify  to  the  largeness  of  the  need 
which  Harvard  meets.  And  the  diploma  of  Harvard 
no  longer  sets  a  man  apart  as  a  member  of  a  special 
or  privileged  class.  It  testifies  simply  that  he  is  "a 
youth  of  promise,"  fitted  to  take  his  place  in  the 
work  of  the  world. 

With  the  democracy  among  students  comes  the 
democracy  of  studies.  The  old-time  Tripos  held  sway 
because  its  chosen  studies  were  sacred  while  all  others 
were  plebeian.  In  the  new  education  all  powers  of 
the  human  mind  are  sacred  alike.  It  is  the  business 
of  the  university  to  train  them,  to  stimulate  them  all, 
not  to  repress  the  many  for  the  sake  of  the  few.  The 
student  of  the  human  body,  the  investigator  of  matter 
and  force,  the  lover  of  Greek  art,  all  meet  on  equal 
ground  on  the  university's  hospitable  campus.  No 
longer  are  the  prizes  of  scholarship  offered  for  play 
while  the  serious  worker  among  things  as  they  are 
encounters  a  barred  door.  The  rewards  of  knowing 
and  doing  are  offered  to  all  alike,  and  these  are  the 

91 


RELATIVE    \' A  LUES     IN     KNOWLEDGE 

only  legitimate  prizes  within  the  scope  of  the  univer- 
sity. To  place  all  men  and  all  studies  on  one  footing, 
is  to  make  a  real  Republic  of  the  university.  This 
once  done,  the  question  of  ' '  What  knowledge  is  of 
most  worth  ?  "  is  one  for  each  man  to  answer  for  him- 
self. What  knowledge  is  worth  most  to  me?  And 
the  very  attempt  to  answer  this  question  is  in  itself 
one  of  the  most  important  factors  in  higher  education. 
That  each  should  answer  it  for  himself  is  the  essential 
element  in  the  freedom  of  the  university,  and  each 
year  as  it  passes  sees  the  American  university  more 
democratic  and  more  free. 

That  the  work  should  be  practical  means  that  it 
should  be  conducted  by  competent  teachers.  Darwin 
tells  us  that  the  lectures  in  geology  in  Edinburgh  in 
his  day  were  so  "incredibly  dull"  that  he  resolved 
that  he  would  have  ' '  nothing  more  to  do  with  the 
subject,  nor  ever  to  read  a  book  upon  it."  Such 
teaching  was  not  practical,  for  the  subject-matter  of 
geology  is  of  interest  to  whoever  comes  into  intelli- 
gent contact  with  it.  The  most  practical  teaching  is 
that  in  which  the  subject  is  borne  most  strongly  to  the 
student's  mind.  The  professorship  in  Harvard,  let  us 
say,  is  not  given  as  a  reward  for  social  or  ecclesias- 
tical distinction,  or  for  a  competitive  tour  de  force 
in  memory.  It  is  given  to  those  scholars  who  know 
how  to  teach,  who  know  how  to  reach  the  heart  of  their 
subjects  for  themselves  and  to  bring  their  students  to 
the   same  vitalizing   contact.     And  in  the  choice  of 

92 


RELATIVE     VALUES     IN     KNOWLEDGE 

teachers  the  demands  of  democracy  are  always  con- 
sidered. In  each  department  is  wanted  the  best  that 
there  is,  and  no  department  of  rational  human  interest 
is  overlooked  or  slighted. 

Is  the  American  university  scientific?  If  we 
answer  Yes,  we  do  not  mean  that  science  only  is 
studied,  nor  even  that  every  individual  student  is 
giving  attention  to  science.  *  'America  means  oppor- 
tunity," and  the  American  university  is  an  intensi- 
fication of  this  same  definition  of  Emerson's.  The 
university  does  its  part,  not  in  forcing  the  student 
over  a  curriculum  of  all  sciences  or  of  any  sciences. 
It  has  only  to  make  generous  provision  for  the  teach- 
ing of  each  and  all  of  them,  and  to  leave  the  rest  to 
the  student.  The  cost  of  teaching  science  is  far 
greater  than  that  of  teaching  language  and  mathe- 
matics. The  vast  endowments  of  our  great  universi- 
ties of  today  find  their  justification  in  this  fact.  These 
schools  are  trying  honestly  to  bring  before  the  student 
the  possibilities  of  human  knowledge.  The  individual 
sciences  are  not  favored  at  the  expense  of  the  tradi- 
tional subjects.  More  money  is  spent  on  the  teaching 
of  Greek  today  than  ever  before,  but  Greek  no  longer 
occupies  an  exclusive  position.  It  is  not  an  object  of 
worship  while  physiology  is  an  object  of  contempt. 
Once  thrown  to  the  democratic  level,  we  find  the  clas- 
sics of  Greece  really  exalted.  Homer  and  Euripides 
are  studied  now  for  their  own  sakes,  not  for  the  badge 
or  hood  or  gown  or  social  distinction  that  they  may 

93 


RELATIVE     VALUES     IN    KNOWLEDGE 

in  a  roundabout  way  confer.  So  they  are  studied  by 
scholars  with  the  methods  and  purposes  of  scholars, 
not  by  recalcitrant  schoolboys,  driven  over  an  unwill- 
ing race-course  in  response  to  the  demands  of  tradi- 
tion. To  say  that  the  university  is  scientific  is  to  say 
that  it  is  genuine,  that  it  is  devoted  to  realities,  not  to 
make-believes  and  shams.  It  is  said  that  ' '  respect  the 
outside ' '  was  a  favored  motto  of  the  old  education  in 
England.  But  science  does  not  respect  the  outside. 
It  aims  to  go  to  the  very  heart  of  things,  and  in  propor- 
tion to  the  extension  of  its  spirit  do  we  witness  the  dis- 
appearance of  caste  and  conventions.  The  things  men 
agree  to  pretend  to  be  true  vanish  at  the  touch  of  truth. 
It  is  true  that  we  have  in  America  not  a  few  insti- 
tutions m  which  the  traditional  ideals  are  still  cher- 
ished and  to  which  the  criticisms  of  Mr.  Spencer  still 
apply  in  full  force.  But  these  are  few  and  not  typical, 
and  their  influence  is  not  growing.  The  students  go 
where  they  can  get  what  they  want,  and  the  Zeitgeist 
responds  to  their  demand.  The  American  university 
of  today  is  molded  by  the  best  scientific  thought  of 
the  century.  One  of  the  voices  to  which  it  has  re- 
sponded is  that  of  Herbert  Spencer.  And  the  essence 
of  his  criticism  has  found  positive  expression  in  the 
constructive  work  of  the  great  university-builders  of 
our  Republic.  Let  the  young  man  or  young  woman 
of  today  ask,  ' '  What  knowledge  is  of  most  worth  to 
me?"  In  the  course  of  study  of  our  American 
universities  will  be  found  the  unhampered  answer,  the 

94 


RELATIVE    VALUES    IN    KNOWLEDGE 

answer  of  Herbert  Spencer,  if  you  like,  the  answer 
of  Agassiz,  or  Emerson  or  Eliot  or  White,  the  ma- 
terials for  your  own  answer,  whatever  it  be.  And 
whatever  you  may  require,  you  will  not  be  turned 
away  empty-handed. 

The  progress  of  the  next  half-century  will  be,  not 
in  development  of  new  lines  in  education,  but  in  inten- 
sification of  the  work  we  are  now  doing.  It  will  be 
in  developing  better  teachers  and  in  closer  contact 
between  teacher  and  pupil.  We  must  realize  that  the 
needs  of  the  student  form  the  sole  reason  for  the  uni- 
versity's existence.  It  is  built  that  it  may  help  men. 
Forty  years  ago  in  English  universities  the  good 
teacher  was  the  very  rare  exception  and  was  prac- 
tically found  only  among  the  private  tutors  dependent 
for  a  living  on  the  young  men  they  taught.  The 
university  professors  held  their  positions  as  sinecures, 
rewards  for  birth  or  breeding  or  efforts  in  the  past, 
but  requiring  no  expenditure  of  force  in  the  present. 
This  condition  is  not  wholly  vanished  from  the  English 
universities  and  its  shadow  still  darkens  even  the  uni- 
versities of  America. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  ambition  to  be  a  good 
teacher  was  regarded  in  our  colleges  as  an  ignoble 
one.  The  college  professor  was  a  being  of  a  higher 
order,  temporarily  in  hard  luck,  because  he  was 
forced  for  a  living  to  sit  out  his  days  before  classes  of 
unwilling  boys.  To  be  above  one's  work  was  held  as 
the  maintenance  of  proper  academic  dignity. 

95 


RELATIVE    VALUES    IN    KNOWLEDGE 

This  condition  is  rapidly  passing.  The  college 
professor,  like  other  men,  is  judged  by  what  he  does. 
Yet  even  now,  not  half  the  men  who  hold  the  profes- 
sor's chair  can  be  called  good  teachers.  The  real 
work  of  every  institution  rests  on  a  very  few  men. 
The  others  mark  time  and  assign  tasks,  their  per- 
sonality counting  for  very  little.  The  progress  of 
education  demands  that  each  man  who  holds  a  college 
chair  should  directly  contribute  to  higher  education. 
It  is  not  his  knowledge  alone  which  concerns  the  stu- 
dent. His  effectiveness  depends  upon  his  personality. 
The  university  of  the  future  will  demand  the  character 
of  the  great  teacher,  the  man  who  believes  in  truth, 
who  believes  in  men,  and  who  knows  how  to  lead  men 
to  the  highest  truth  he  knows. 

The  best  teacher,  other  things  being  equal,  is  the 
one  who  comes  nearest  to  the  student.  To  bring  the 
teacher  close  to  the  student  is  to  multiply  his  influ- 
ence many-fold.  The  very  usefulness  of  our  univer- 
sities tends  to  weaken'  the  bond  of  personal  influence. 
The  man  is  lost  in  the  mass,  and  because  the  mass  is 
so  great,  cheap  or  temporary  help  is  brought  in,  and 
the  professor  is  pushed  away  still  farther.  It  is  the 
problem  of  the  modern  university  to  remedy  this  con- 
dition. In  the  old-time  college  every  one  knew  every 
one  else,  and  if  perchance  in  the  small  number  one 
great  teacher  found  place,  the  lives  of  all  the  others 
were  richer  in  consequence.  But  in  the  university  of 
today,    with   its   array    of  great   teachers,    of   noble 

9'-' 


R  E  L  A  T  I  \'  E    \'  A  L  U  E  S     IN     KNOWLEDGE 

investigators,  of  men  whose  names  are  known  wher- 
ever civilization  extends,  the  mere  student  may  see  none 
of  them.  Temporary  assistants  at  a  thousand  a  year, 
less  experienced  and  less  capable  than  those  he  left  in 
the  academy,  may  be  the  only  teachers  he  can  reach. 
When  this  is  the  condition,  higher  education  has  lost 
a  large  part  of  its  effectiveness. 

The  keynote  to  the  education  of  the  future  must 
be  "Constructive  Individualism."  The  foundation  of 
its  method  must  be  * '  knowing  men  by  name. ' '  This 
is  no  new  discovery.  It  was  not  invented  in  Palo 
Alto,  nor  yet  in  Harvard,  nor  in  Michigan.  It  is  as 
old  as  Socrates  or  Plato.  It  has  been  recognized 
wherever  the  training  of  men  has  been  taken  seriously. 

A  Japanese  writer,  Uchimura,  says  this  of  educa- 
tion in  old  Japan:  "We  were  not  taught  in  classes 
then.  The  grouping  of  soul-bearing  human  beings 
into  classes,  as  sheep  upon  Australian  farms,  was  not 
known  in  our  old  schools.  Our  teachers  believed,  I 
think  instinctively,  that  man  (^persona )  is  unclassifi- 
able;  that  he  must  be  dealt  with  personally  —  i.  e., 
face  to  face,  and  soul  to  soul.  So  they  schooled  us 
one  by  one  —  each  according  to  his  idiosyncrasies, 
physical,  mental  and  spiritual.  They  knew  each  one 
of  us  by  name.  And  as  asses  were  never  harnessed 
with  horses,  there  was  but  little  danger  of  the  latter 
being  beaten  down  into  stupidity,  or  the  former  driven 
into  the  valedictorians'  graves.  In  this  respect,  there- 
fore,   our    old-time   teachers    in    Japan    agreed    with 

97 


RELATIVE     VALUES     IN     KNOWLEDGE 

Socrates  and  Plato  in  their  theory  of  education.  So 
naturally  the  relation  between  students  and  teachers 
was  the  closest  one  possible.  We  never  called  our 
teachers  by  that  unapproachable  name,  Professor. 
We  called  them  Sensei,  'men  born  before' — so 
named  because  of  their  prior  birth,  not  only  in  respect 
of  the  time  of  their  appearance  in  this  world,  which 
was  not  always  the  case,  but  also  of  their  coming  into 
the  understanding  of  the  truth.  It  was  this,  our  idea 
of  relationship  between  teacher  and  student,  which 
made  some  of  us  to  comprehend  at  once  the  intimate 
relation  between  the  Master  and  the  disciples  which 
we  found  in  the  Christian  Bible.  When  we  found 
written  therein  that  the  disciple  is  not  above  his 
master,  nor  the  servant  above  his  lord;  or  that  the 
good  shepherd  giveth  his  life  for  the  sheep,  and  other 
similar  sayings,  we  took  them  almost  instinctively  as 
things  known  to  us  long  before. ' ' 

Thus  it  was  in  old  Japan.  Thus  should  it  be  in 
new  America.  In  such  manner  do  the  oldest  ideas 
forever  renew  their  youth,  when  these  ideas  are 
based,  not  on  tradition  or  convention,  but  in  the 
nature  of  man. 

We  may  thus  answer  Mr.  Spencer's  question, 
"What  knowledge  is  of  most  worth?"  in  this  way: 
" That  which  is  worth  most  to  me."  And  the  mis- 
sion of  the  university  is  to  furnish  this  knowledge, 
just  this  knowledge  which  I  want,  and  to  furnish  it 
to  me. 

98 


V. 


RECENT  TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE 
EDUCATION. 

IT  HAS  long  been  recognized  that  a  four  years' 
college  course,  after  the  course  in  the  secondary 
school,  and  preceding  the  course  in  professional 
training,  holds  the  young  man  a  very  long  time 
in  school.  Few  men  are  prepared  for  college,  as 
matters  stand,  before  the  age  of  seventeen  or  eighteen. 
Few  graduate  under  twenty-one  or  twenty-two,  and 
the  professional  school  demands  the  years  to  twenty- 
four,  twenty-five  or  twenty-six.  After  this  follows 
another  year  or  two  of  petty  beginnings,  and  by 
the  time  the  young  man  is  fairly  under  way,  he 
has  reached  the  age  of  thirty.  If  from  ill  health, 
hesitation  of  policy,  or  for  any  other  reason,  the 
college  course  is  delayed,  the  entrance  on  profes- 
sional life  becomes  correspondingly  later.  By  this 
process,  the  ancient  rule  of  health,  "Rise  early,  be- 
fore you  are  twenty-five,  if  possible,"  is  persistently 
violated. 

There  is  no  advantage  in  merely  putting  in  time 
m  college  at  the  expense  of  serious  work  outside. 
Every  day  in  school  should  justify  itself.     Wherever 

99 


TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 


time  can  be  saved  without  sacrifice  of  results,  it  is  a 
real  gain  in  education. 

The  college  course  has  been  systematically  length- 
ened within  the  past  twenty  years.  It  has  been  made 
longer  that  it  may  be  enriched  and  made  effective. 
To  this  end,  subject  after  subject  of  an  elementary 
character  has  been  thrown  backward  to  the  prepara- 
tory schools.  In  this,  there  are  some  advantages. 
The  college  with  more  advanced  pupils  becomes  more 
serious  and  more  enlightened.  It  offers  a  broader 
range  of  subjects,  and  touches  the  interests  of  a  much 
larger  number  of  men. 

On  the  other  hand,  students  are  often  kept  in 
their  local  high  schools  until  they  are  tired  of  the 
place  and  tired  of  the  work.  Higher  education  begins 
when  a  boy  leaves  home  and  learns  to  depend  on 
himself.  Because  the  high  schools  have  an  inade- 
quate and  over-feminine  teaching  force,  very  many 
boys  who  might  have  been  helped  by  a  college  edu- 
cation abandon  school  long  before  they  are  ready  to 
enter  college.  There  is  a  constant  pressure  on  the 
preparatory  school  to  undertake  more  work  and  to 
do  it  more  rapidly.  The  preparatory  school  tries  to 
do  this,  with  some  success  and  also  with  serious  draw- 
backs, because  the  results  are  tested  by  the  quantity 
rather  than  the  quality  of  work  done. 

The  college  has  not  yet  devised  a  qualitative  scale 
of  admission.  Not  how  much  the  student  knows,  but 
what  is  the  nature  of  his  ability  and  training,  should 


TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 

be  the  test  of  preparation.  The  college  ought  to 
insist  that  the  student  shall  be  able  to  go  on  with  the 
higher  work  successfully,  rather  than  that  he  should 
have  to  his  credit  such  and  such  subjects,  or  their 
equivalents.  But  it  is  easier  to  make  numerical  esti- 
mates than  to  test  the  student's  mettle.  It  is  easier  to 
measure  cordwood  than  culture,  and  our  tests  of  prep- 
aration are  based  on  the  method  used  in  estimating 
cordwood. 

The  college  should  receive  men  whenever  they  are 
ready  for  its  freedom  and  ready  to  do  its  work.  If  it 
can  devise  a  sure  method,  it  may  ' '  dip  down ' '  into 
the  lower  schools  and  take  their  best  students  when 
they  have  reached  fitness  for  independent  study. 

Having  turned  the  freshman  year  of  former  days 
over  to  the  preparatory  schools,  the  college  can 
now  do  correspondingly  more  in  its  senior  year. 
Shall  it  use  this  time  for  general  culture,  or  for  pro- 
fessional training?  Here  the  pressure  to  yield  this 
year  to  the  professional  schools  makes  itself  felt.  In 
America,  the  professional  schools  have  vainly  tried  to 
train  men  who  have  no  foundation  of  knowledge  or 
discipline;  to  make  lawyers  and  physicians  out  of  men 
with  neither  scientific  knowledge  nor  literary  culture. 
This  has  failed,  and  in  its  failure  has  brought  all 
American  professions,  except  engineering,  into  disre- 
pute. 

The  reputable  professional  school  demands,  or  will 
soon  demand,  a  college  education  as  a  prerequisite  for 


TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 

entrance.  No  man  with  less  training  than  this  can 
do  specialized  work  in  university  fashion.  The  col- 
lege course  represents  a  degree  of  enlightenment  and 
a  kind  of  training  without  which  professional  success 
and  usefulness  are  not  possible.  The  extension  of 
the  elective  system  has  enabled  the  college  to  meet 
the  needs  of  all  kinds  of  men  of  brains  and  force. 
To  shorten  the  college  course  to  three  years  is  to 
yield  the  last  year  to  the  professional  schools,  and 
these  sorely  need  the  time. 

Another  influence  tending  in  this  direction  comes 
from  the  German  educational  system.  In  Germany, 
the  local  high  school,  or  gymnasium,  takes,  let  us 
say,  two  of  the  years  we  give  to  the  college.  The 
professional  school  or  university  takes  the  rest.  The 
university  gives  no  general  culture  or  general  training. 
The  gymnasium  gives  nothing  else,  and  its  curriculum 
is  as  rigid  as  that  of  the  university  is  free. 

While  German  educators  are  considering  the  pos- 
sible introduction  of  the  college  as  an  intermediate 
between  the  college  and  the  university,  there  is  in 
America  a  tendency  toward  the  obliteration  of  the 
college,  by  merging  its  higher  years  into  the  univer- 
sity, its  lower  into  the  preparatory  school. 

It  is  true  that  in  the  gymnasium  students  get  on 
faster  than  in  our  high  schools  and  preparatory 
schools.  The  German  student  is  as  far  along  in  his 
studies  at  sixteen  as  the  American  at  eighteen.  This 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  American  life  makes  more  out- 

lOl 


TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 

side  demands  on  boys  than  life  in  Germany  does. 
The  American  boy  is  farther  along  in  self-reliance  and 
in  knowledge  of  the  world  at  sixteen  than  the  German 
at  twenty.  The  American  college  freshman,  espe- 
cially if  brought  up  in  the  West,  knows  a  thousand 
things,  outside  of  his  books  and  more  useful,  because 
more  true  than  most  of  what  his  books  contain.  He 
can  ride,  drive,  swim,  row,  hunt,  take  care  of  horses, 
play  games,  run  an  engine,  or  attend  to  some  form  of 
business,  while  the  German  boy  cannot  even  black  his 
own  shoes.  As  education  is  no  perquisite  of  the  rich, 
the  American  boy  has  very  likely  been  obliged  to 
earn  the  money  he  spends  on  his  own  education.  To 
do  this  he  loses  time  in  scholastic  marks,  but  in  the 
long  run  this  is  clear  gain,  provided  that  he  does  not 
abandon  his  education.  The  boy  who  graduates  at 
twenty-four  is  often  more  than  three  years  ahead  of 
the  one  who  takes  his  bachelor's  degree  at  twenty- 
one.  To  lose  time  in  testing  life  is  not  a  loss  at  all, 
and  the  American  boy  is  the  stronger  for  his  early 
escape  from  leading  strings.  When  his  university 
training  is  over,  he  is  not  merely  learned;  he  is  ade- 
quate, and  the  higher  ideal  of  personal  effectiveness 
supplements  the  German  ideal  of  erudition,  or  the 
English  ideal  of  personal  culture. 

It  is  proposed  now  to  let  a  man  graduate  in  three 
years,  provided  he  can  do  four  years'  average  work 
in  that  time.  This  is  no  new  proposition  and  needs 
no  discussion.     Many  men  can  do  in  three  years  more 

103 


TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 

than  the  average  man  can  in  four.  In  many  institu- 
tions, in  most  of  those  in  the  West,  this  privilege  has 
been  allowed  for  many  years.  If  guarded  from  abuse, 
and  if  the  possibility  of  mere  cramming  is  excluded, 
there  can  be  no  objection  to  it.  In  many  institutions 
a  man  graduates  whenever  he  has  done  the  required 
work,  and  the  propriety  of  this  needs  no  argument. 

But  the  average  man  cannot  do  the  required  work 
in  less  than  four  years.  What  shall  we  do  for  him  ? 
It  is  practicable  to  reduce  the  amount  of  work  re- 
quired for  graduation.  This  would  still  leave  the 
college  course  longer  than  it  was  twenty  years  ago, 
because  so  much  more  is  now  required  for  admission 
to  college. 

I  do  not  believe  that  this  is  the  best  solution.  It 
is  better,  I  believe,  to  bring  the  elements  of  profes- 
sional knowledge  and  the  beginning  of  advanced 
research  into  the  course  itself.  It  is  better  to  break 
down  the  barrier  between  the  college  and  the  univer- 
sity, by  letting  the  university  dip  down  into  the  col- 
lege. For  example,  in  making  lawyers,  the  work  in 
the  foundations  of  law  can  be  relegated  to  the  college, 
as  in  making  chemists  we  now  teach  elementary  chem- 
istry in  the  freshman  year.  In  training  physicians, 
the  elementary  work,  physiology,  general  anatomy, 
histology,  and  chemistry,  should  all  be  in  the  college 
course,  and  in  making  scientific  men  of  any  grade, 
the  senior  year  is  none  too  early  for  the  beginnings 
of  scientific  research.     I  believe  that  the  four  years' 

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TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 

college  course  offers  a  great  advantage.  It  is  now 
possible  to  offer  the  serious  student,  before  graduat- 
ing, the  crowning  value  of  the  college  course, — 
something  of  the  method  of  research.  It  is  likewise 
possible  to  offer  the  elements  of  professional  training 
inside  the  college  course,  and  not  as  an  affair  wholly 
separate.  In  fa\'or  of  this  arrangement,  the  following 
facts  may  be  urged: 

It  is  an  advantage  to  college  training  to  relate  it 
to  life.  The  sooner  a  man  knows  what  he  is  to  do  in 
life,  and  gets  at  it,  the  better.  This  being  admitted, 
the  fuller  the  preparation  the  better,  provided  the 
final  goal  is  always  kept  in  view.  To  make  a  first- 
rate  surgeon,  the  scalpel  should  be  in  use  from  youth 
onward.  It  need  not  be  used  on  the  human  body, 
but  the  methods  of  histology  and  anatomy  should  be 
learned  early  and  never  allowed  to  fall  into  disuse. 
To  put  an  embryo  physician  through  four  years  of 
classics  and  mathematics,  and  then  to  turn  him  sud- 
denly into  dissection  and  clinic,  is  to  invite  failure. 
He  has  learned  nothing  of  research  in  his  college 
course,  his  hand  has  grown  clumsy  and  his  power  of 
observation  is  dulled.  To  be  a  good  physician,  he 
should  have  turned  his  whole  college  course  in  that 
direction,  —  not  that  he  should  have  had  less  of  litera- 
ture and  the  humanities,  but  that  these  should  aid 
science,  not  displace  it. 

A  young  man  makes  a  better  lawyer  if  he  is  in 
some   degree  a  law  student  throughout   his  college 

los 


TENDENCIES    IN   COLLEGE   EDUCATION 

course,  for  six  or  seven  years,  not  merely  for  three 
at  the  end.  Elementary  equity  is  in  no  sense  an 
advanced  study.  It  has  a  natural  place  in  the  college 
curriculum,  with  just  as  much  right  as  economics,  or 
the  history  of  philosophy,  and  to  the  ordinary  col- 
lege course  the  universities  should  relegate  elemen- 
tary law,  physiology,  histology,  comparative  anatomy, 
and  all  forms  of  science  which  are  elementary  and 
fundamental  to  professional  research.  When  this  is 
done,  four  years  will  be  none  too  long  for  general 
training,  and  the  professional  departments  will  deal 
with  men  prepared  to  do  serious  work,  men  worthy 
of  the  advantages  the  best  libraries  and  laboratories 
can  have  to  offer.  Then,  if  the  time  is  to  be  short- 
ened, the  result  can  be  reached  by  the  higher  demands 
of  the  professional  schools.  It  is  absurd  to  call  the 
department  of  law  "a  graduate  school"  when  half 
its  students  are  engaged  with  the  a-b-c  of  equity,  a 
subject  as  elementary  as  trigonometry  or  qualitative 
analysis.  Let  elementary  law  go  with  elementary 
chemistry  and  the  advanced  school  can  devote  itself 
to  advanced  training,  and  a  man  who  is  to  be  a  lawyer 
can  think  in  terms  of  law  throughout  his  college 
course.  He  will  be  a  better  lawyer  for  doing  so,  and 
his  work  being  better  related  to  life,  he  will  be  in 
every  other  respect  a  better  scholar  on  account  of  it. 

Leaving  out  ill-equipped  or  temporary  schools,  the 
American  professional  school  of  the  future  will  have 
one  or  the  other  of  two  great  purposes.     The  one  is 

io6 


# 

TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 

typified,  perhaps,  by  the  Professional  Schools  of 
Michigan.  The  professional  school  will  take  the  pro- 
fession as  it  is  and  raise  it  as  a  whole.  So  many  men 
will  be  doctors,  so  many  will  be  lawyers  in  Michigan. 
Let  us  take  them  as  we  find  them  and  make  them  just 
as  good  lawyers  and  doctors  as  we  can.  Let  us  not 
drive  them  away  by  requirements  they  cannot  or  will 
not  meet,  but  adjust  the  work  and  conditions  to  the 
best  they  can  meet,  the  best  standards  winning  in  the 
long  run  and  carrying  public  opinion  with  them. 

The  other  ideal  is  perhaps  typified  by  Johns  Hop- 
kins University.  Let  the  university  medical  school 
deal  with  the  exceptional  man  of  exceptional  ability 
and  exceptional  training.  Give  him  special  advan- 
tages, send  out  a  limited  number  of  the  best  physi- 
cians possible,  and  raise  the  standard  of  the  profession 
by  filling  its  ranks  with  the  best  the  university  can 
send. 

The  one  ideal  or  the  other  will  be,  consciously  or 
not,  before  each  professional  school  which  strives  to 
be  really  helpful.  It  is  not  for  me  to  say  which  is  the 
better.  The  one  purpose  naturally  presents  itself  to 
state  institutions,  or  to  institutions  dependent  on  ap- 
propriations or  patronage.  The  other  is  more  readily 
achieved  by  institutions  of  independent  endowment. 
It  is  a  matter  of  economy  that  all  schools  should  not 
be  alike  in  this  regard. 

The  high  school  course  gives  a  certain  breadth  of 
culture.     The  high  school  of  today  is  as  good  as  the 


TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 

college  of  forty  years  ago,  so  far  as  studies  go.  It 
misses  the  fact  of  going  away  from  home  and  of  close 
relation  with  men  of  higher  wisdom  and  riper  experi- 
ence than  our  high  schools  demand  in  their  teachers. 
It  takes  a  broader  mental  horizon  to  be  a  physician 
than  merely  to  practice  medicine,  to  be  a  lawyer  than 
merely  to  practice  law.  Those  who  want  the  least 
education  possible  can  get  along  with  very  little;  they 
can  omit  the  college.  But  for  large-minded,  widely 
competent  men,  men  fit  for  great  duties,  not  a  moment 
of  the  college  course  can  be  spared.  Whether  to 
take  a  college  education  or  not,  depends  on  the  man  — 
what  there  is  in  him — and  on  the  course  of  study. 
There  is  no  magic  in  the  name  of  college,  and  there 
is  no  gain  in  wrong  subjects,  work  shirked,  or  in  right 
subjects  taken  under  wrong  teachers.  Studies,  like 
other  food,  must  be  assimilated  before  they  can  help 
the  system. 

The  great  indictment  of  the  college  is  its  waste  of 
the  student's  time;  prescribed  studies  taken  unwil- 
lingly; irrelevant  studies  taken  to  till  up;  helpful  stud- 
ies taken  under  poor  teachers;  any  kind  of  studies 
taken  idly,  —  all  these  have  tended  to  discredit  the 
college  course.  Four  years  is  all  too  short  for  a  lib- 
eral education,  if  every  moment  be  utilized.  Two 
years  is  all  too  long,  if  they  are  spent  in  idleness  and 
dissipation,  or  if  tainted  by  the  spirit  of  indifference. 

The  spirit  of  the  college  is  more  important  than 
the  time  it  takes.     The  college  atmosphere  should  be 

io8 


TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 

a  clean  and  wholesome  one,  full  of  impulses  to  action. 
It  is  good  to  breathe  this  air,  and  in  doing  so,  it  mat- 
ters little  whether  one's  studies  be  wholly  professional, 
half  professional,  or  directed  towards  ends  of  culture 
alone. 

In  city  colleges  where  the  students  live  at  home, 
traveling  back  and  forth  on  street  cars,  a  college 
atmosphere  cannot  be  developed.  In  these  institu- 
tions, as  a  rule,  the  college  work  is  perfunctory,  its 
recitations  being  often  regarded  as  a  disagreeable 
interpretation  of  social  and  athletic  affairs.  As  a 
rule,  higher  education  begins  when  a  man  leaves 
home  to  become  part  of  a  guild  of  scholars.  The 
city  college  is  merely  a  continued  high  school,  and 
with  both  students  and  teachers  there  is  a  willing- 
ness to  cut  it  as  short  as  possible,  so  that  the  young 
men  can  "get  down  to  business."  In  institutions 
of  this  type,  the  professional  school  forms  a  sharp 
contrast  to  the  college  in  its  stronger  requirements 
and  more  serious  purpose.  In  other  types  of  col- 
lege, it  is  the  general  student  who  does  the  best  work. 
In  many  of  them  the  professional  departments  are 
far  inferior  in  tone  and  spirit  to  the  general  academic 
course. 

It  becomes,  then,  a  question  as  to  the  college 
itself,  how  long  a  student  should  stay  in.  If  the 
academic  requirements  are  severe,  just  and  honest;  if 
the  idler,  the  butterfly,  the  blockhead  and  the  para- 
site are  promptly  dropped  from  the  rolls;  if  the  spirit 

109 


TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 

of  plain  living  and  high  thinking  rules  in  the  college, 
the  student  should  stay  there  as  long  as  he  can,  and, 
if  possible,  take  part  of  his  professional  work  under  its 
guidance.  The  nearer  the  teacher,  the  better  the 
work.  The  value  of  teachers  grows  less  as  the  square 
of  their  distance  increases.  If  the  college  course  is  a 
secondary  matter,  with  inferior  teachers  talking  down 
to  their  students,  studies  prescribed  because  the  faculty 
cares  too  little  for  the  individual  man  to  adapt  its 
courses  to  his  needs, — an  atmosphere  of  trifling, 
or  no  atmosphere  at  all, — the  sooner  the  student 
gets  into  something  real,  the  better.  A  good 
university  may  develop  in  a  great  city,  a  good  college 
cannot,  because  students  and  teachers  are  all  too 
far  apart. 

In  this  matter  the  college  degree  is  only  an  inci- 
dent. It  is  the  badge  of  admission  to  the  roll  of 
alumni,  a  certificate  of  good  fellowship,  which  always 
means  a  little  and  may  imply  a  great  deal.  But  the 
degree  is  only  one  of  the  toys  of  our  educational 
babyhood,  as  hoods  and  gowns  represent  educational 
bib  and  tucker.  Don't  go  out  of  your  way  to  take 
a  degree.  Don't  miss  it  because  you  are  in  too  great 
a  hurry.  For  the  highest  professional  success,  you 
can  afford  to  take  your  time.  It  takes  a  larger  pro- 
vision for  a  cruise  to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  than  for 
a  run  to  the  Isle  of  Dogs. 

The  primitive  American  college  was  built  strictly 
on  English  models.     Its  purpose  was  to  breed  clergy- 


TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 

men  and  gentlemen,  and  to  fix  on  these  its  badge  of 
personal  culture,  raising  them  above  the  common 
mass  of  men.  Till  within  the  last  thirty  years  the 
traditions  of  the  English  Tripos  held  undisputed  sway. 
We  need  not  go  into  details  of  the  long  years  in 
which  Latin,  Greek  and  mathematics,  with  a  dash  of 
outworn  philosophy,  constituted  higher  education  in 
America.  The  value  of  the  classical  course  lay  largely 
in  its  continuity.  Whoever  learned  Greek,  the  per- 
fect language  and  the  noble  literature,  gained  some- 
thing with  which  he  would  never  willingly  part.  Even 
the  weariness  of  Latin  grammar  and  the  intricacies  of 
half-understood  calculus  have  their  value  in  the  com- 
radery  of  common  suffering  and  common  hope.  The 
weakness  of  the  classical  course  lay  in  its  lack  of  rela- 
tion to  life.  It  had  more  charms  for  pedants  than  for 
men,  and  the  men  of  science  and  the  men  of  action 
turned  away  hungry  from  it. 

The  growth  of  the  American  university  came  on 
by  degrees,  different  steps,  some  broadening,  some 
weakening,  by  which  the  tyranny  of  the  Tripos  was 
broken,  and  the  democracy  of  studies  established  with 
the  democracy  of  men. 

It  was  something  over  thirty  years  ago  when  Her- 
bert Spencer  asked  this  great  question :  ' '  What 
knowledge  is  of  most  worth?"  To  the  schoolmen 
of  England  this  came  as  a  great  shock,  as  it  had 
never  occurred  to  most  of  them  that  any  knowledge 
had  any  value  at  all.     Its  function  was  to  produce 


TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 

culture,  which,  in  turn,  gave  social  position.  That 
there  were  positive  values  and  relative  values  was  new 
in  their  philosophy.  Spencer  went  on  to  show  that 
those  subjects  had  most  value  which  most  strength- 
ened and  enriched  life,  first,  those  needful  to  the  per- 
son, then  those  of  value  in  professional  training,  then 
in  the  rearing  of  the  family,  the  duty  as  a  citizen,  and 
finally  those  fitting  for  esthetic  enjoyment.  For  all 
these,  except  the  last,  the  English  universities  made 
no  preparation,  and  for  all  these  purposes  Spencer 
found  the  highest  values  in  science,  the  accumulated, 
tested,  arranged  results  of  human  experience.  Spen- 
cer's essay  assumed  that  there  was  some  one  best 
course  of  study  —  the  best  for  every  man.  This  is 
one  of  the  greatest  fallacies  in  education.  Moreover, 
he  took  little  account  of  the  teacher,  perhaps  assum- 
ing with  some  other  English  writers  that  all  teachers 
were  equally  inefficient,  and  that  the  difference  between 
one  and  another  may  be  regarded  as  negligible. 

It  has  been  left  for  American  experimenters  in 
education  to  insist  on  the  democracy  of  the  intellect. 
The  best  subjects  for  any  man  to  study  are  those  best 
fitted  for  his  own  individual  development,  those  which 
will  help  make  the  actual  most  of  him  and  his  life. 
Democracy  of  intellect  does  not  mean  equality  of 
brains,  still  less  indifference  in  regard  to  their  quality. 
It  means  simply  fair  play  in  the  schedule  of  studies. 
It  means  the  development  of  fit  courses  of  study,  not 
traditional  ones,  of  a  "tailor-made"   curriculum   for 


TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 


each  man   instead  of   the   "hand-me-down"    article, 
misfitting  all  alike. 

In  the  time  of  James  II,  Richard  Rumbold  "never 
could  believe  that  God  had  created  a  few  men  already- 
booted  and  spurred,  with  millions  already  saddled 
and  bridled  for  these  few  to  ride. "  In  like  fashion, 
Andrew  Dickson  White  could  never  believe  that  God 
had  created  a  taste  for  the  niceties  of  grammar  or 
even  the  appreciation  of  noble  literature,  these  few 
tastes  to  be  met  and  trained  while  the  vast  body  of 
other  talents  were  to  be  left  unaided  and  untouched, 
because  of  their  traditional  inferiority.  In  unison 
with  President  White,  Ezra  Cornell  declared  that  he 
' '  would  found  an  institution  where  any  person  could 
find  instruction  in  any  study."  In  like  spirit  the 
Morrill  Act  was  framed,  bringing  together  all  rays  of 
various  genius,  the  engineer,  and  the  psychologist, 
the  student  of  literature  and  the  student  of  exact 
science,  "Greek-minded"  men  and  tillers  of  the  soil, 
each  to  do  his  own  work  in  the  spirit  of  equality 
before  the  law.  Under  the  same  roof  each  one  gains 
by  mutual  association.  The  literary  student  gains  in 
seriousness  and  power,  the  engineer  in  refinement  and 
appreciation.  Like  in  character  is  the  argument  for 
co-education,  a  condition  encouraged  by  this  same 
Morrill  Act.  The  men  become  more  refined  from 
association  with  noble  women,  the  women  more 
earnest  from  association  with  serious  men.  The  men 
are  more  manly,  the  women  more  womanly  in  co- 
ns 


TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 

education,  a  condition  opposed  alike  to  rowdyism  and 
frivolity. 

In  the  same  line  we  must  count  the  influence  of 
Mark  Tappan,  perhaps  the  first  to  conceive  of  a  state 
university,  existing  solely  for  the  good  of  the  state,  to 
do  the  work  the  state  most  needs,  regardless  of  what 
other  institutions  may  do  in  other  states.  Agassiz  in 
these  same  times  insisted  that  advanced  work  is  better 
than  elementary,  for  its  better  disciplinary  quality. 
He  insisted  that  Harvard  in  his  day  was  only  "a 
respectable  high  school,  where  they  taught  the  dregs 
of  education."  Thorough  training  in  some  one  line 
he  declared  was  the  backbone  of  education.  It  was 
the  base  line  by  which  the  real  student  was  enabled  to 
measure  scholarship  in  others. 

In  most  of  our  colleges  the  attempt  to  widen  the 
course  of  study  by  introducing  desirable  things  pre- 
ceded the  discovery  that  general  courses  of  study 
prearranged  had  no  real  value.  We  should  learn  that 
all  prescribed  work  is  bad  work  unless  it  is  prescribed 
by  the  nature  of  the  subject.  The  student  in  electrical 
engineering  takes  to  mathematics,  because  he  knows 
that  his  future  success  with  electricity  depends  on  his 
mastery  of  mechanics  and  the  calculus.  In  the  same 
fashion,  the  student  in  medicine  is  willing  to  accept 
chemistry  and  physiology  as  prescribed  studies.  But 
a  year  in  chemistry,  or  two  years  in  higher  mathe- 
matics, put  in  for  the  broadening  of  the  mind  or 
because   the   faculty  decrees   it,   has   no   broadening 

114 


TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 

effect.  Work  arbitrarily  prescribed  is  always  poorly 
done  ;  it  sets  low  standards,  and  works  demoralization 
instead  of  training.  There  cannot  be  a  greater  edu- 
cational farce  than  the  required  year  of  science  in  cer- 
tain literary  courses.  The  student  picks  out  the 
easiest  science,  the  easiest  teacher  and  the  easiest  way 
to  avoid  work,  and  the  whole  requirement  is  a  source 
of  moral  evil.  Nothing  could  be  farther  from  the 
scientific  method  than  a  course  in  science  taken  with- 
out the  element  of  personal  choice. 

The  traditional  courses  of  study  were  first  broken 
up  by  the  addition  of  short  courses  in  one  thing  or 
another,  substitutes  for  Latin  or  Greek,  patchwork 
courses  without  point  or  continuity.  These  substitute 
courses  were  naturally  regarded  as  inferior,  and  for 
them  very  properly  a  new  degree  was  devised,  the 
degree  of  B.  S. —  Bachelor  of  Surfaces. 

That  work  which  is  required  in  the  nature  of 
things  is  taken  seriously.  Serious  work  sets  the  pace, 
exalts  the  teacher,  inspires  the  man.  The  individual 
man  is  important  enough  to  justify  his  teachers  in 
takmg  the  time  and  the  effort  to  plan  a  special  course 
for  him. 

Through  the  movement  towards  the  democracy  of 
studies  and  constructive  individualism,  a  new  ideal  is 
bemg  reached  in  American  universities,  that  of  per- 
sonal effectiveness.  The  ideal  in  England  has  always 
been  that  of  personal  culture;  that  of  France,  the 
achieving,  through  competitive  examinations,  of  ready- 

"5 


TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 

made  careers,  the  satisfaction  of  what  Villari*  calls 
"Impiegomania,"  the  craze  for  appointment;  that  of 
Germany,  thoroughness  of  knowledge;  that  of  Amer- 
ica, the  power  to  deal  with  men  and  conditions. 
Everywhere  we  find  abundant  evidence  of  personal 
effectiveness  of  American  scholars.  Not  abstract 
thought,  not  life-long  investigation  of  minute  data, 
not  separation  from  men  of  lower  fortune,  but  the 
power  to  bring  about  results  is  the  characteristic  of 
the  American  scholar  of  today. 

From  this  point  of  view  the  progress  of  the  Ameri- 
can university  is  most  satisfactory,  and  most  encour- 
aging. The  large  tendencies  are  moving  in  the  right 
direction.      What  shall  we  say  of  the  smaller  ones? 

Not  long  ago,  the  subject  of  discussion  in  a 
thoughtful  address  was  this:  the  "  Peril  of  the  Small 
College."     The  small  college  has  been  the  guardian 

*  "  A  consequence  of  cheap  higher  ism  and  Anarchism  in  Northern  Italy 

education  in  Italy  is  the  vast  and  ever-  or  into  the  Mafia  and  the  Catiioi  i  a  w 

increasing  army  of  the  educated  un-  the  South.     But  a  large  number  try  to 

employed    [caW^A  spostati].     Every  obtain  that  panacea  for  all  ills  —  Cio\- 

year  a  large  number  of  graduates  in  ernment  employment.  Inipiegomaiiia 

law,     medicine,     belles-lettres    and  is  a  recognized  disease  in  Italy, and  a 

science  are  turned  out  into  the  world  youngnian  whocanobtainanapponit- 

to  enter  professions  in  which  there  is  ment  in  a  Government  office,  where  he 

no  room  for  them.     Their  education  has  little  work  and  a  salary  of  ^50  or 

has   unfitted    them    for  useful   work  ^6oayear.lhmkshimselfattneheight 

without  enabling  them  to  succeed  in  of  earthly  bliss.    Government  employ- 

the  liberal  professions.     Men  who  in  ment  is  the  Holy  Grail  of  three-quar- 

England  would  go   into  business  or  ters  of  the  university  graduates.   The 

emigrate  to  America  or  the  Colonies,  most  miserably  paid  impiegato  or  the 

in     Italy     become     lawyers  without  most  unsuccessful    professional  man 

clients,     doctors     without     patients,  regards    himself   as  superior   to  the 

journalists  and  litterateurs  without  most  prosperous  tradesman  or  skilled 

readers,    professors    without    pupils,  mechanic." — I'illari — '  Village  Life 

Some  succeed  in  getting  a  little  work  in  Town  and  Country." 
by  underselling  abler  men,  thus  low-  It  is  not  the  cheapness  of  higher 

ering   the  already    low   professional  education  which  is  here  at  fault,  but 

incomes;  others  lead  idle  and  vicious  its  misdirection   and  the  wrong  mo- 

lives  for  a  time,  and  drift  into  Social-  tives  ruling  in  Italian  society. 

116 


TENDENCIES    IN    COLLEGE    EDUCATION 

of  higher  education  in  the  past.  It  is  most  helpful  in 
the  present  and  we  cannot  afford  to  let  it  die.  We 
understand  that  the  large  college  becomes  the  univer- 
sity. Because  it  is  rich,  it  attempts  advanced  work 
and  work  in  many  lines.  It  takes  its  opportunity, 
and  an  opportunity  which  the  small  college  cannot 
grasp.  Advanced  work  costs  money.  A  wide  range 
of  subjects,  taught  with  men,  libraries  and  labora- 
tories, is  a  costly  matter,  but  by  a  variety  of  supply 
the  demand  is  formed.  The  large  college  has  many 
students,  because  it  offers  many  opportunities.  Be- 
cause large  opportunities  bring  influence  and  students 
and  gifts,  there  is  a  tendency  to  exaggerate  them. 
It  is  easy  to  feel  that  the  facilities  we  offer  are 
greater  than  is  really  the  case.  We  are  led  to  boast, 
because  only  boasting  seems  to  catch  the  public  eye. 
The  peril  of  the  small  college  is  the  peril  of  all 
colleges,  the  temptation  of  advertising.  All  boasting 
is  self-cheapening.  The  peril  of  the  small  college  is 
that  in  its  effort  to  become  large  it  shall  cease  to  be 
sound.  The  small  college  can  do  good  elementary 
work  in  several  lines.  It  can  do  good  adv^anced  work 
in  a  very  few.  If  it  keeps  its  perspective,  if  it  does 
only  what  it  can  do  well,  and  does  not  pretend  that 
bad  work  is  good  work,  or  that  the  work  beyond  its 
reach  is  not  worth  doing,  it  is  in  no  danger.  The 
small  college  may  become  either  a  junior  college  or 
high-grade  preparatory  school,  sending  its  men  else- 
where for   the  flower  of  their  college  education,   or 

117 


TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 

else  it  must  become  a  small  university  running  nar- 
rowly on  a  few  lines,  but  attending  to  these  with  devo- 
tion and  persistence.  Either  of  these  are  honorable 
conditions.  For  the  first  of  these  the  small  college 
has  a  great  advantage.  It  can  come  close  to  its 
students;  it  can  "know  its  men  by  name."  The 
value  of  a  teacher  is  enhanced  as  he  becomes  more 
accessible.  The  work  of  the  freshman  and  sopho- 
more years  in  many  of  our  great  colleges  is  sadly 
inadequate,  because  its  means  are  not  fitted  to  its 
ends.  In  very  few  of  our  large  colleges  does  the 
elementary  work  receive  the  care  its  importance  de- 
serves. 

The  great  college  can  draw  the  best  teachers  away 
from  the  small  colleges.  In  this  regard  the  great  col- 
lege has  an  immense  advantage.  It  has  the  best 
teachers,  the  best  trained,  the  best  fitted  for  the  work 
of  training.  But  in  most  cases  the  freshman  never 
discovers  this.  There  is  no  worse  teaching  done  under 
the  sun  than  in  the  lower  classes  of  some  of  our  most 
famous  colleges.  Cheap  tutors,  inexperienced  and 
underpaid,  are  set  to  lecture  to  classes  far  beyond  their 
power  to  mterest.  We  are  saving  our  money  for 
original  research,  careless  of  the  fact  that  we  fail  to 
give  the  elementary  training  which  makes  research 
possible.  Too  often,  indeed,  research  itself,  the 
noblest  of  all  university  functions,  is  made  an  adver- 
tismg  fad.  The  demands  of  the  university  press  have 
swollen  the  literature  of  science,  but  they  have  proved 

ii8 


TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 

a  doubtful  aid  to  its  quality.  Get  something  ready. 
Send  it  out.  Show  that  we  are  doing  something. 
All  this  never  advanced  science.  It  is  through  men 
born  to  research,  trained  to  research,  choicest  product 
of  nature  and  art,  that  science  advances. 

Another  effect  of  the  advertising  spirit  is  the  cheap- 
ening of  salaries.  The  smaller  the  salaries,  the  more 
departments  we  can  support.  It  is  the  spirit  of  adver- 
tising that  leads  some  institutions  to  tolerate  a  type 
of  athlete  who  comes  as  a  student  with  none  of  the 
student's  purpose.  I  am  a  firm  believer  in  college 
athletics.  I  have  done  my  part  in  them  in  college  and 
out.  I  know  that  "the  color  of  life  is  red,"  but  the 
value  of  athletic  games  is  lost  when  outside  gladiators 
are  hired  to  play  them.  No  matter  what  the  induce- 
ment, the  athletic  contest  has  no  value  except  as  the 
spontaneous  effort  of  the  college  man.  To  coddle  the 
athlete  is  to  render  him  a  professional.  If  an  institu- 
tion makes  one  rule  for  the  ordinary  student  and 
another  for  the  athlete  it  is  party  to  a  fraud.  Without 
some  such  concession,  half  the  great  football  teams  of 
today  could  not  exist.  I  would  rather  see  football 
disappear  and  the  athletic  fields  closed  for  ten  years  for 
fumigation  than  to  see  our  colleges  helpless  in  the 
hands  of  athletic  professionalism,  as  many  of  them 
are  today. 

This  is  a  minor  matter  in  one  sense,  but  it  is  preg- 
nant with  large  dangers.  Whatever  the  scholar  does 
should  be  clean.     What  has  the  support  of  boards  of 

119 


TENDENCIES  IN  COLLEGE  EDUCATION 

scholars  should  be  noble,  helpful  and  inspiring.  For 
the  evils  of  college  athletics,  the  apathy  of  college 
faculties  is  solely  responsible.  The  blame  falls  on  us  : 
let  us  rise  to  our  duty. 

There  is  something  wrong  in  our  educational  prac- 
tice when  a  wealthy  idler  is  allowed  to  take  the  name 
of  student,  on  the  sole  condition  that  he  and  his 
grooms  shall  pass  occasional  examinations.  There  is 
no  justification  for  the  granting  of  degrees  on  cheap 
terms,  to  be  used  in  social  decoration.  It  is  said  that 
the  chief  of  the  great  coaching  trust  in  one  of  our 
universities  earns  a  salary  larger  than  was  ever  paid 
to  any  honest  teacher.  His  function  is  to  take  the 
man  who  has  spent  the  term  in  idleness  or  dissipation, 
and  by  a  few  hours'  ingenious  coaching  to  enable  him 
to  write  a  paper  as  good  as  that  of  a  real  student.  The 
examinations  thus  passed  are  mere  shams,  and  by  the 
tolerance  of  the  system  the  teaching  force  becomes 
responsible  for  it.  No  educational  reform  of  the  day 
is  more  important  than  the  revival  of  honesty  in  regard 
to  credits  and  examinations,  such  a  revival  of  honest 
methods  as  shall  make  coaching  trusts  impossible. 

The  same  methods  which  cure  the  aristocratic  ills 
of  idleness  and  cynicism  are  equally  effective  in  the 
democratic  vice  of  rowdyism.  With  high  standards 
of  work,  set  not  at  long  intervals  by  formal  examina- 
tions, but  by  the  daily  vigilance  and  devotion  of  real 
teachers,  all  these  classes  of  mock  students  disappear. 

The  football  tramp  vanishes  before  the  work-test. 


TENDENCIES    IN    COLLEGE   EDUCATION 

The  wealthy  boy  takes  his  proper  place  when  honest, 
democratic  brain  effort  is  required  of  him.  If  he  is 
not  a  student,  he  will  no  longer  pretend  to  be  one 
and  ought  not  to  be  in  college.  The  rowdy,  the 
mucker,  the  hair-cutting,  gate-lifting,  cane-rushing 
imbecile  is  never  a  real  student.  He  is  a  gamin  mas- 
querading in  cap  and  gown.  The  requirement  of 
scholarship  brings  him  to  terms.  If  we  insist  that  our 
colleges  shall  not  pretend  to  educate  those  who  cannot 
or  will  not  be  educated,  we  shall  have  no  trouble  with 
the  moral  training  of  the  students. 

Above  all,  in  the  West,  where  education  is  free, 
we  should  insist  that  free  tuition  means  serious  work, 
that  education  means  opportunity,  that  the  student 
should  do  his  part,  and  that  the  degree  of  the  univer- 
sity should  not  be  the  seal  of  academic  approbation  of 
four  years  of  idleness,  rowdyism,  profligacy  or  dissi- 
pation. 

Higher  education,  properly  speaking,  begins  when 
a  young  man  goes  away  from  home  to  school.  The 
best  part  of  higher  education  is  the  development  of 
the  instincts  of  the  gentleman  and  the  horizon  of  the 
scholar.  To  this  end  self-directed  industry  is  one  of 
the  most  effective  agents.  As  the  force  of  example 
is  potent  in  education,  a  college  should  tolerate  idle- 
ness and  vice  neither  among  its  students  nor  among  its 
teachers. 


VI. 

THE    PERSONALITY   OF   THE 
UNIVERSITY. 

I  AM  asked,  as  a  loyal  citizen  of  California  and  as 
a  representative  of  a  sister  republic  of  letters, 
which  California  cherishes  across  the  bay,  to  add 
a  word  to  the  generous  welcome  which  Califor- 
nia gives  to  the  president  of  her  university.  My 
words,  Mr.  President,  shall  be  words  of  advice,  not 
that  you  need  it,  or  should  ever  heed  it,  but  because 
there  is  no  other  article  of  value  with  which  I  can  so 
willingly  part. 

It  is  a  saying  of  Emerson  that  ' '  colleges  can  only 
serve  us  when  their  aim  is  not  to  drill  but  to  create. 
They  draw  every  ray  of  varied  genius  to  their  hospit- 
able halls,  and  by  their  concentrated  influence  set  the 
heart  of  our  youth  into  flame."  The  most  precious 
thing  in  human  life  is  personality.  It  is  by  this  we 
know  our  friends  and  for  this  we  love  them.  In  most 
respects,  as  living  organisms,  men  are  alike.  Each 
has  eyes,  hands,  organs,  dimensions,  senses,  aftections, 
passions,  is  fed  with  the  same  food,  hurt  by  the  same 
weapons,  warmed  or  cooled  by  the  same  winter  or 
summer,  and  each  in  his  degree  is  "pleased  with  a 


THE   PERSONALITY   OF  THE   UNIVERSITY 

rattle,  tickled  with  a  straw."  For  all  this  we  do  not 
care.  What  is  all  alike  never  interests  us.  It  is  the 
slight  and  subtle  elements  of  difference  which  help  us 
to  know  one  man  from  another,  which  enable  us  to 
love,  to  respect,  to  worship  one  man  above  his  fellows. 
Among  a  thousand  vegetative  characters,  we  are 
touched  by  the  one  quality  of  personality,  made  up 
of  a  dozen  minor  attributes  of  kindness,  wit,  gladness, 
brilliancy,  effectiveness,  making  a  whole  which  we  may 
love,  fear  or  obey. 

In  the  same  way,  a  university  must  have  personality, 
else  it  cannot  be  great.  A  university  is  an  aggre- 
gation of  professorships,  departments,  buildings,  books, 
seminaries  and  laboratories.  But  it  is  more  than  this. 
It  is  a  place  where  students  of  all  degrees  come  to- 
gether in  the  democracy  of  learning.  It  is  an  alliance 
of  men  devoted  to  the  discovery  and  administration  of 
the  truth.  But  this  is  not  all  of  the  university  ideal, 
for  all  universities,  in  their  degree,  are  devoted  to 
the  same  ends.  In  superficial  regards  all  univer- 
sities are  alike.  All  have  buildings,  libraries,  mu- 
seums, microscopes,  professorships.  These  are  the 
university's  vegetative  organs.  Without  these  it 
would  not  live,  but  by  these  only  one  university  would 
not  differ  from  another.  It  is  not  for  these  things  all 
have  in  common  that  we  know  universities.  Just  as 
with  men,  it  is  the  subtle  element  of  personality.  The 
Harvard  spirit,  the  Cornell  spirit,  the  Yale  spirit,  the 
spirit  of  Berkeley,  the  spirit  of  Stanford,  all  these  are 

123 


THE   PERSONALITY  OF  THE   UNIVERSITY 

matters  as  real  as  the  building  or  the  books,  and  more 
important. 

For  the  most  valuable  feature  of  a  university  is  its 
character,  the  nature  of  its  university  atmosphere. 
This  atmosphere  is  the  conscious  or  unconscious  work 
of  the  men  who  control.  The  atmosphere  of  greatness 
gathers  around  great  teachers.  Werner  at  Freiberg, 
Dollinger  at  Munich,  Arnold  at  Rugby,  Tappan  at 
Ann  Arbor,  Hopkins  at  Williamstown,  Agassiz  at 
Cambridge,  White  at  Ithaca  —  these  serve  only  as 
illustrations.  As  with  these,  so  with  all  great  teachers 
everywhere. 

As  the  universities  of  America  are  constituted,  it  is 
the  part  of  the  president  to  create  the  university  atmos- 
phere. He  must  set  its  pace,  must  frame  its  ideals  and 
choose  the  men  in  whom  these  ideals  can  be  realized. 
It  is  through  the  men  he  chooses  that  the  university 
becomes  a  living  person.  The  president  is  not  himself 
the  king.  His  noblest  work  is  that  of  maker  of  kmgs. 
It  is  not  what  the  president  himself  can  do  that  first 
concerns  the  university.  His  personal  power,  skill  or 
versatility  are  of  little  moment.  It  is  what  he  can 
discern  and  divine  in  other  men  that  gauges  success. 
It  is  his  instinct  to  know  what  the  best  work  of  others 
may  be  and  how  he  can  use  it  in  the  fabric  he  is  build- 
ing. A  long  head  and  long  patience  he  must  needs 
have,  for  he  has  often  to  wait  years  for  men  to  grow 
to  what  he  expects  of  them,  and  others  to  find  men  to 
■whom  he  can  look  for  the  right  kind  of  growth.     He 

12.4. 


THE   PERSONALITY   OF   THE   UNIVERSITY 

must  have  the  instinct  to  judge  men  and  to  estimate 
what  men  say  of  men.  He  must  be  keen  to  recog- 
nize in  others  qualities  of  worth  he  may  not  possess 
himself.  He  must  have  the  wisdom  to  foster  indi- 
vidual freedom  and  the  firmness  to  check  that  free- 
dom that  spends  itself  in  futile,  erratic  or  sentimental 
efforts. 

Out  of  all  this  and  a  hundred  other  elements,  it 
is  your  place,  Benjamin  Ide  Wheeler,  as  president  of 
the  great  university  of  our  great  state,  to  construct 
your  purpose  and  your  policy,  and  to  give  the  uni- 
versity its  personality,  its  color  and  its  atmosphere. 
Above  all  rests  with  you  the  forming  of  its  moral  tone, 
for  after  all  character-building  is  the  noblest  work  of 
the  university,  and  I  am  one  of  those  who  believe  that 
in  this  work  the  university  may  be  made  the  most 
effective  agency.  I  have  known  you  for  many 
years.  Dr.  Wheeler  —  thirteen  years,  is  it  not,  in 
all? — always  adequate  to  the  work  the  gods  set  you  to 
do.  I  know  that  you  can  meet,  and  will  meet,  all  that 
the  state  expects  of  you.  Because  this  is  so,  I  regard 
this  day,  this  25th  day  of  October,  1899,  as  one  of 
the  greatest,  full  of  the  fullest  of  hope,  of  all  the  days 
in  the  calendar  of  California. 

Just  one  word  more. 

Some  time  ago  a  regent  of  the  university  said  to 
me,  "Now  that  we  have  Wheeler,  we  must  change 
our  notion  of  rivalry.  Henceforth  it  shall  not  be 
Berkeley    against    Stanford,     nor    Stanford     against 


THE   PERSONALITY  OF  THE   UNIVERSITY 

Berkeley,  but  California  against  the  world."  Now  in 
all  seriousness,  why  not?  We  recognize  how  natural 
advantages  count  in  every  field  of  labor,  horse-raising, 
fruit-growing,  ship-building.  Why  not  in  education  ? 
In  the  environment  fittest  for  training  young  men  and 
women,  there  are  three  mighty  elements  —  healthful- 
ness,  beauty,  freedom.  These  three  are  the  distinctive 
characteristics  of  California.  A  perfect  climate  which 
calls  one  out  of  doors  at  all  times  of  the  year,  and  re- 
wards him  for  his  coming,  matchless  beauty  of  moun- 
tain and  forest,  of  lake  and  of  the  sea,  of  hill  and  river, 
and  with  endless  elbow  room,  intellectually,  physically 
and  morally  !  If  we  add  to  this  the  two  universities, 
rival  and  cooperating,  as  well  endowed  as  the  best,  and 
fairer  in  houses  and  outlook  than  the  most  beautiful  of 
all  the  land,  why  should  not  California  become  a  world- 
center  of  education?  Men  once  flocked  to  Athens  for 
such  things.  Why  should  they  not  come  here  ?  Why 
not  Berkeley  and  Stanford,  together  and  indivisible, 
against  the  world  ? 

It  has  been  Dr.  Wheeler's  good  fortune  and  mine 
to  sit  at  the  feet  of  the  same  great  master,  Andrew  D. 
White.  We  can  remember  President  White's  appeal 
to  his  alumni,  that,  wherever  we  might  go,  we  should 
stand  by  "our  state  universities,  for  in  them  is  the 
educational  hope  of  the  South  and  West."  We  of 
Stanford  are  not  deaf  to  this  appeal.  We  are  citizens 
of  California  loyal  and  true.  We  shall  stand  by  our 
state  university,  for  in  its  development  is  the  educa- 

126 


THE   PERSONALITY  OF  THE   UNIVERSITY 

tional  hope  of  our  Golden  West,  and  we  pledge  to 
President  Wheeler  our  help  in  fullest  loyalty,  when- 
ever and  wherever  and  howsoever  he  may  ask  our 
aid. 


127 


VII. 

THE    HIGHER    EDUCATION    OF    THE 
BUSINESS   MAN. 

IN  THIS  discussion  the  business  man  is  held  to 
be  a  man  fitted  to  take  charge  of  or  assist  in 
large  financial  enterprises  in  manufacture,  com- 
merce, transportation  or  banking.     In  this  sense 
a  salesman,  stenographer  or  cash-boy  is  not  a  busi- 
ness man. 

By  higher  education  we  mean  that  intellectual 
training  in  varied  subjects  to  be  had  in  a  specialized 
school,  in  general  away  from  home,  a  school  of  such 
breadth  and  intensity  as  to  have  a  definite  college  or 
university  atmosphere.  The  ordinary  business  school 
or  trade  school,  teaching  devices  without  mental  train- 
ing, would  not  meet  this  definition,  and  the  classical 
college  with  its  limited  range  of  instruction  would 
meet  it  only  in  part. 

The  man  with  brains  needs  a  corresponding  degree 
of  education.  The  greater  the  natural  fitness  the 
greater  the  need  for  thorough  training  and  the  more 
worthy  the  final  result. 

The  best  education  for  a  man  of  brains  and  char- 
acter involves  three  elements  : 

128 


HIGHER    EDUCATION    OF    BUSINESS    MAN 

1.  It  should  be  directed  toward  a  definite  end. 
The  sooner  this  end  is  seen  the  better,  and  it  should 
always  be  kept  in  view. 

2.  Being-  definite,  the  education  should  be  broad 
and  thorough,  including  all  that  is  finally  essential  to 
the  highest  success. 

3.  It  should  be  related  to  the  future  activities  of 
life,  in  part  toward  professional  success,  in  part  toward 
success  as  a  man. 

Toward  human  success,  the  growth  of  character, 
the  college  has  always  done  its  part.  It  has  not  al- 
ways been  mindful  of  the  needs  of  the  man  as  a  worker 
in  society.  To  relate  knowledge  to  life  has  been  one 
of  its  chief  problems  in  recent  years.  To  this  end 
the  college  must  adapt  its  work  to  the  individual  man. 
What  one  mind  finds  inspiring  or  helpful  is  useless  to 
another.  By  means  of  the  element  of  choice,  it  has 
been  possible  to  broaden  and  deepen  the  work  of  the 
college  and  to  draw  into  its  range  an  ever  widening 
circle  of  men. 

To  do  justice  to  the  business  man,  the  college 
should  give  him  early  skill  in  a  few  simple  subjects, 
which  have  little  value  in  mental  training.  The  college 
will  save  his  time  by  teaching  these  regardless  of  their 
academic  value.  It  can  teach  stenography,  bookkeep- 
ing and  commercial  law,  as  it  now  teaches  woodwork- 
ing, voice  culture  and  punctuation.  The  student's 
need  is  the  college's  justification.  For  the  rest  the 
business  man  will  find  many  of  his  special  needs  met 

1:9 


HIGHER    EDUCATION    OF    BUSINESS    MAN 

by  studies  which  are  distinctly  academic ;  among 
these,  Enghsh  composition  and  Enghsh  Hterature, 
American  history  and  modern  history  of  Europe  and 
Asia,  elementary  law,  international  law,  political 
science,  economics,  finance,  German,  Spanish  and  the 
serious  drill  of  at  least  one  of  the  sciences.  Especially 
valuable  to  the  man  of  affairs  is  a  practical  familiarity 
with  the  methods  of  scientific  research,  for  by  such 
methods  alone  is  research  of  any  kind  made  effective. 

By  sound  methods  he  should  investigate  such  sub- 
jects as  these  :  the  effects  on  business  of  gold  and  other 
standards  of  value ;  the  effects  of  protective  tariff  and 
other  tariffs;  the  results  on  commerce  of  friendly  nnd 
unfriendly  foreign  relations  ;  the  relation  of  trade  to 
the  flag;  the  results,  immediate  and  ultimate,  of  subsi- 
dies, trusts  and  bounties;  the  possibilities  of  railway 
control;  the  methods  of  dignified  and  economical  local 
government;  the  question  of  municipal  control;  the 
meaning  of  civil  service  refbrm.  To  have  worked  out 
some  serious  problem  in  science  by  sound  methods 
and  then  to  have  applied  the  same  methods  to  the  so- 
lution of  any  one  of  these  problems  will  be  worth  more 
to  the  real  business  man  than  ten  years  of  practical  ex- 
perience as  cash  boy,  errand  boy,  floor-walker  and 
clerk. 

These  subjects  and  others  of  like  character  should 
be  studied  not  didactically,  not  emotionally,  but  by 
practical  investigation  of  the  lines  of  actual  business. 
To  give  sound  methods  of  investigation  is  the  highest 

130 


HIGHER    EDUCATION    OF    BUSINESS    MAN 

duty  of  the  real  university.  A  system  of  training 
which  misses  this  should  hardly  be  called  education, 
for  It  is  the  function  of  training  to  disclose  the  secret 
of  power. 

To  secure  power  no  experience  is  so  valuable  as 
that  which  may  be  obtained  in  college,  and  four  years, 
or  even  seven  years,  is  a  period  all  too  short.  Be- 
cause it  is  short,  there  should  be  no  waste  of  time,  no 
random  effort.  All  work  should  look  toward  the 
final  goal,  not  forgetting  of  course  the  needs  of  per- 
sonal culture.  Thus  a  man  may  properly  turn  aside 
from  his  life  study  to  study  Greek  or  music  or  botany, 
not  because  he  needs  it  in  his  business,  but  because  he 
loves  it. 

To  the  average  business  man  who  does  not  care 
for  Latin,  Greek  or  Calculus,  the  old-fashioned  clas- 
sical course  of  thirty  years  ago  had  relatively  little 
value,  yet  even  four  years  of  quiet  comradery  and 
intellectual  zest  were  well  worth  taking  before  plung- 
ing into  the  struggle  of  life.  Many  a  business  man 
regrets  that  his  college  course  was  so  narrow.  I 
never  heard  of  one  who  would  give  up  even  the  little 
outlook  on  higher  things  this  outworn  course  of  study 
represents. 

So  much  for  what  the  man  of  business  asks  today 
of  the  university.  What  in  turn  can  the  American 
university  of  today  do  for  him .'' 

The  American  university,  after  its  long  struggle 
with  poverty  and  tradition,  is  standing  forth  as  a  very 

131 


HIGHER    EDUCATION    OF    BUSINESS    MAN 

definite  type  of  institution;  very  different  from  the 
English  college  from  which  it  sprang;  very  different 
from  the  German  university  from  which  it  draws  its 
inspiration,  yet  partaking  somewhat  of  the  character 
of  each. 

It  has  now  three  principal  functions: 

1.  That  of  general  culture:  to  give  a  scholar's 
horizon  some  idea  of  the  best  that  has  been  thought 
or  done  in  the  world's  history;  to  give  acquaintance 
with  men  and  women  of  the  present  or  of  the  past 
who  have  stood  for  noble  ideals  and  hopeful  aspira- 
tion. This  line  of  effort  constitutes  the  college  work, 
when  we  use  the  word  college  in  its  traditional  mean- 
ing, or  in  contrast  with  the  university  and  the  profes- 
sional school. 

2.  Professional  training:  the  actual  drill  in  the 
knowledge  needed  in  one's  profession  and  the  methods 
used  in  successful  practice.  This  is  the  work  of  the 
professional  school,  to  which  the  college  course  should 
lead. 

3.  University  training.  The  highest  form  of  uni- 
versity work  is  instruction  through  investigation.  The 
student  learns  the  methods  of  research  through  actual 
practice  in  the  use  of  them.  He  learns  the  way  to 
truth  by  an  actual  extension  in  some  one  direction  of 
the  bounds  of  human  knowledge.  The  college  does 
not  pretend  to  include  professional  training  or  scien- 
tific research  within  the  limits  of  its  course  of  study. 
The  university  includes  both.     Here  the  proper  line 

132 


HIGHER    EDUCATION    OF    BUSINESS    MAN 

between  college  and  university  is  drawn.  Yet  the  col- 
lege should  forecast  the  university.  In  four  years  we 
cannot  compass  very  much,  but  in  these  years  the 
college  can  give,  besides  the  general  culture  which  is 
its  main  work,  the  basis  of  professional  training  and 
the  impulse  toward  research  as  well.  To  this  end  it 
should  encourage  the  student  to  keep  in  mind  his  final 
career  and  to  shape  his  work  so  that  mental  culture 
shall  count  as  personal  effectiveness.  By  means  of 
thorough  inductive  study  in  some  one  line,  it  should 
introduce  the  student  to  methods  of  research.  To 
teach  subjects  which  are  listlessly  received  and  which 
are  as  soon  as  possible  forgotten  is  a  waste  of 
time  and  effort.  It  is  a  degradation  of  the  means 
and  purpose  of  higher  education.  No  one  should  be 
encouraged  or  allowed  to  stay  in  college  for  per- 
functory work.  To  go  through  the  motions  without 
caring  for  the  realities  is  an  unwholesome  kind  of 
training.  Neither  should  the  college  allow  itself  to  be 
used  by  those  to  whom  the  college  degree  is  a  mere 
badge  of  social  distinction.  The  idlers  in  college  con- 
stitute a  costly  drag  on  its  ambitions.  The  fees  they 
pay  are  a  scanty  return  for  the  mischief  done  by  their 
presence.  The  university  is  false  to  its  trust  if  it  does 
not  relate  its  work  to  life  and  if  it  spends  its  strength 
on  the  stupid,  the  indolent  or  the  indifferent  There 
are  too  many  real  men  in  search  of  real  education  to 
justify  tolerance  of  shams. 

In  the  practical  organization  of  an  American  uni- 

133 


HIGHER    EDUCATION    OF    BUSINESS    MAN 

versity  I  cannot  see  that  the  needs  of  business  demand 
a  separate  branch  or  fundamental  division.  The  course 
of  study  as  it  is,  is  perhaps  broad  enough,  and  it  can 
easily  be  made  broader  without  change  of  organization. 
We  do  not  need  a  separate  school  of  commerce  to  ed- 
ucate the  business  man  any  more  than  we  need  a  sepa- 
rate school  to  train  the  journalist  or  the  poet  or  the 
diplomatist.  The  culture  studies  necessary  are  already 
given.  For  special  research  in  economics,  finance  and 
politics  large  provision  is  already  made.  It  can  be 
made  larger  when  necessary.  It  is  not  so  much  the 
things  studied  in  school  as  the  way  of  looking  at 
them  which  is  important.  The  student  needs  most  of 
all  the  ability  to  separate  what  is  true  from  what  is 
plausible,  to  distinguish  induction  from  deduction. 
The  university  should  not  be  too  ' '  timely ' '  in  its  re- 
lations to  the  student.  It  deals  with  eternal  verities 
and  unchanging  methods.  It  is  safer  for  it  not  to  be 
too  ' '  up-to-date.  ' '  To  meet  each  new  call  as  it  arises 
is  to  make  a  good  many  false  steps. 

The  fact  that  station  agents,  railway  conductors, 
bookkeepers  and  clerks  are  not  usually  college  men  has 
been  lately  taken  as  a  serious  argument  against  higher 
education.  The  simple  fact  is  that  the  college  student 
can  do  better  than  to  accept  such  places.  If  he  has 
the  right  stuff  in  him  he  is  willing  enough  to  begin 
at  the  bottom,  but  it  must  be  the  bottom  of  an  as- 
cending series.  There  must  be  some  prospect  ahead. 
You  will   find   the  graduate   in  mining   in  California 

'34 


HIGHER    EDUCATION    OF    BUSINESS    MAN 

working  for  his  board  in  the  mines  of  Angel's  Camp 
or  Nevada  City,  but  he  knows  that  faithful  service  in 
the  ditch  will  carry  him  at  one  bound  past  all  his  un- 
trained competitors. 

If  to  be  a  bookkeeper,  salesman  or  floor- walker  is 
final,  the  college  man  will  not  often  enter  the  list. 
For  such  places  an  apprenticeship  as  a  cashboy  or  a 
year  in  a  business  school  may  seem  more  useful  than 
four  years  of  Latin  and  Greek  or  even  of  history 
and  science.  It  is  worth  more  if  you  count  not  the 
man  but  his  trade.  The  cashboy' s  experience  might 
be  as  helpful  to  the  floor-walker  as  an  exhaustive 
knowledge  of  the  whole  business  of  the  firm.  It  is 
when  exceptional  effort  or  exceptional  responsibility  is 
demanded  that  training  shows  itself  The  exceptional 
man  places  himself  in  line  for  just  such  possibilities. 

When  certain  business  critics  condemn  the  college 
course  for  its  lack  of  fitness  and  practicability,  we  are 
obliged  to  ask  what  kind  of  college  they  have  in 
mind.  There  is  as  much  difference  among  American 
colleges  as  among  American  railroads  or  American  dry 
goods  stores. 

If  a  foreigner  objects  to  the  American  railway 
that  it  has  no  schedule  and  never  gets  anywhere,  we 
wonder  whether  he  refers  to  the  New  York  Central  or 
to  some  branch  road  in  the  black  belt  of  the  South. 
We  wonder,  moreover,  whether  he  has  ever  traveled 
at  home.  So  when  the  fitness  of  the  American  uni- 
versity is  challenged  we  should  like  to  know  whether 

135 


HIGHER    EDUCATION    OF    BUSINESS    MAN 

the  critic  has  Harvard  in  mind  or  Michigan,  or  perhaps 
' '  Valparaiso  University, ' '  or  the  crossroads  college 
at  Hugginsville.  Hartsville  University,  with  two  pro- 
fessors, precedes  Harvard  in  our  alphabetical  lists,  and 
Yellville  stands  next  to  Yale. 

As  a  rule,  the  business  man  who  does  not  believe 
in  colleges  has  in  mind  some  classical  school  of  his 
boyhood  where  careless  boys  were  drilled  in  unwilling 
Latin.  As  to  this,  we  may  as  well  admit  the  facts.  For 
most  practical  purposes  in  life,  either  of  culture  or 
action,  the  Latin  grammar,  to  the  average  man,  is  the 
poorest  educational  stuff  the  colleges  yield.  The  pre- 
dominance of  Latin  is  a  matter  of  tradition,  not  of 
experience.  Latin,  Greek  and  Calculus  have  consti- 
tuted for  centuries  the  Tripos  or  three-legged  stool 
which  bore  up  culture  in  the  colleges  of  England. 
Latin  formed  the  chief  part  of  the  college  course  of 
thirty  years  ago,  and  the  business  man  of  today  who 
thinks  university  building  an  ' '  absurd  fad ' '  has  in  mind 
the  narrow  work  of  the  little  colleges  where  he  was  a 
boy.  In  so  far  as  their  work  was  efficient  their  power 
lay  in  the  influence  of  personality  rather  than  in  the 
subjects  they  taught.  ' '  A  log  with  Mark  Hopkins 
at  one  end  of  it  and  himself  at  the  other ' '  was 
Garfield's  conception  of  a  university.  It  was  said 
of  Dr.  Nott,  of  Union  College,  that  ' '  he  took  the 
sweepings  of  other  colleges  and  sent  them  back  to 
society  pure  gold. ' '  This  was  the  influence  of  a  great 
personality,  not  of  the  Latin  he  taught,  nor  of  his  out- 

136 


HIGHER    EDUCATION    OF    BUSINESS    MAN 

worn  metaphysics.  With  such  narrow  ideas  of  the 
college  as  a  school  of  Latin  exercises  it  is  no  wonder 
that  many  business  men  do  not  believe  in  it.  They  do 
not  find  such  a  school  useful  in  their  business  nor  in 
their  lives.  It  is  not  very  useful,  in  itself,  except  for 
the  rare  man,  "the  Greek-minded  man,  the  Roman- 
minded,"  as  Emerson  calls  him.  I  did  not  care  for  it, 
myself,  when  it  was  first  offered  to  me  more  than 
thirty  years  ago.  Then  I  turned  aside  from  classical 
Yale  to  the  new  hope  of  Cornell,  where  I  could  study 
plants  and  rocks  as  well  as  Latin  and  Greek,  and  with 
equal  opportunity  and  equal  encouragement.  The 
university  of  today  recognizes  the  supreme  majesty  of 
Greek  for  those  who  can  enter  into  its  spirit.  It  rec- 
ognizes the  large  helpfulness  of  Latin  in  literary 
matters.  It  gives  far  more  attention  to  higher  mathe- 
matics than  the  classical  college  did,  but  for  another 
purpose.  Its  courses  in  engineering  rest  upon  it.  Its 
range  of  studies  is  now  broadened  and  enriched  so  as 
to  include  whatever  in  any  line  the  real  student  can 
demand  for  any  real  purpose. 

The  professions  that  the  university  has  especially 
cherished  have  been  those  of  law,  medicme  and  theol- 
ogy. To  these,  in  America,  have  been  added  engi- 
neering and  teaching.  For  direct  training  in  business 
little  demand  has  been  made,  perhaps  because  the 
university  gives  already  nearly  all  that  can  be  asked 
except  practical  experience.  This  it  cannot  yield, 
though  it  can  give  better  things.     A  very  successful 

137 


HIGHER    EDUCATION    OF    BUSINESS    MAN 

mining  engineer  has  lately  maintained  that  the  student 
in  the  university  has  no  time  to  spend  on  ' '  practical 
work ' '  in  mining  methods.  From  the  university  he 
gains  inductive  science  and  deductive  theory,  both  to 
be  had  from  the  university  alone.  He  will  have  plenty 
of  time  later  to  get  practical  acquaintance  with  crushers 
and  dumps.  If  he  spends  his  precious  university 
time  on  practical  details  he  will  not  be  ready  when 
higher  demands  are  made  on  him. 

In  business,  as  in  mining,  the  university  can  save 
the  student's  time  by  giving  him  methods  of  work  and 
methods  of  thought,  which  outweigh  the  value  of  lab- 
oratory practice  in  the  counting-house  or  the  sales- 
room. 

It  is  very  clear  that  the  university-trained  engineer 
has  an  immense  advantage  over  his  self-taught  com- 
petitor. Not  long  since,  I  had  an  application  from  a 
mine  in  Siskiyou  County,  California,  for  a  trained  min- 
ing engineer.  The  writer  went  on  to  say,  with  much 
severe  language,  which  I  shall  leave  blank,  that  he  had 
had  enough  of  forty-niners  —  of  practical  mining  men 
—  of  men  who  knew  the  business  from  the  bottom. 
He  had  lost  $6,000  in  a  month  through  their  advice, 
and  he  wanted  ' '  some  one  who  knew  the  business,  not 
from  the  bottom  up,  but  from  the  top  downward." 

The  late  Irving  M.  Scott,  of  the  Union  Iron 
Works  of  San  Francisco,  the  builder  of  the  "Ore- 
gon," had  among  his  employees  numerous  graduates 
of  Cornell  and  Stanford.     He  told  me  once  that  he 

13S 


HIGHER    EDUCATION    OF    BUSINESS    MAN 

regarded  a  university  man  as  worth  50  per  cent  more 
than  a  man  who  has  come  up  to  the  same  level  by 
practical  experience. 

A  certain  Stanford  mining  engineer  six  years  out 
of  college  now  commands  a  salary  greater  than  that 
of  all  the  self-taught  mining  engineers  in  California 
put  together.  This  is  a  very  exceptional  case,  but 
there  are  many  who  approach  it.  I  am  told  that  of  the 
Stanford  electrical  engineers  there  is  not  one  who  is 
not  " getting  a  larger  salary  then  he  deserves."  If 
this  is  true,  it  is  because  the  engineers  with  whom 
they  compete  are  less  than  adequate.  In  civil  en- 
gineering the  Western  railroads  give  preference  to 
college  men.  There  is  no  prejudice  against  them  such 
as  exists  sometimes  in  the  East,  because  Western  boys 
have  more  practical  experience  than  Eastern  boys. 
There  have  been  breaks  in  their  school  life.  Before 
going  to  college  they  have  already  had  some  contact 
with  the  inevitable  and  have  learned  patience,  courage 
and  common  sense.  They  enter  college  later,  but  in 
the  meantime  they  have  learned  to  break  horses  and 
to  keep  account  books  and  to  be  masters  of  them- 
selves in  any  situation.  If  more  necessity  for  self- 
help  existed  in  our  secondary  schools  we  should  turn 
out  a  wiser  brand  of  college  students.  A  little  con- 
tact with  the  world  is  a  great  help  in  clearing  the  vision. 
The  young  man  who  sees  things  as  they  are  will 
begin  at  the  bottom  with  perfect  cheerfulness.  He 
knows  the  way  to  the  top,  where  there  is  always  room, 

139 


HIGHER    EDUCATION    OF    BUSINESS    MAN 


which  can  never  be  found  by  the  artisan  who  operates 
by  rule  of  thumb. 

A  large  percentage  of  the  college  men  of  today, 
especially  in  our  state  universities,  work  their  own 
way  through  college,  and  these  may  have  a  more  ac- 
curate and  varied  knowledge  of  affairs  than  is  pos- 
sessed by  half  the  heads  of  business  houses.  A  few 
days  ago  such  a  man,  lately  graduated  from  Stanford, 
was  chosen  to  an  important  clerkship  in  a  large  busi- 
ness house  in  San  Francisco,  being  given  precedence 
over  200  practical,  experienced  or  business  school 
competitors. 

A  recent  writer  asks,  * '  Would  you  advise  a  young 
man  with  $5,000  capital,  intending  to  become  a  busi- 
ness man,  to  spend  that  sum  first  on  a  college  educa- 
tion ? ' '  Certainly  not.  Let  him  work  in  vacation 
and  use  only  the  interest  of  $5,000,  and  he  will  have 
both  his  education  and  his  principal  when  he  gets 
through.  That  some  foolish  parents  spend  a  sum 
like  this  each  year  on  an  effeminate  or  luxurious  boy, 
does  not  concern  him.  He  can  get  a  better  educa- 
tion in  the  same  college  by  his  own  unaided  efforts. 
If  our  colleges  insist  that  their  students  must  get  down 
to  work  or  go  home,  we  should  hear  less  of  lavish  ex- 
penditure or  of  the  complaint  that  colleges  are  for 
rich  men  only.  It  is  the  college  where  the  students 
are  poor  that  will  some  day  have  the  rich  alumni. 

We  know,  of  course,  that  business  instincts  are 
inborn,    not    created    by   education.      Some   college 

140 


HIGHER    EDUCATION    OF    BUSINESS    ]\IAN 

graduates  could  never  succeed  in  business,  as  others 
could  not  succeed  in  engineering  or  in  music.  In  the 
lower  grades  of  employment  some  will  succeed,  others 
will  not.  The  effeminate  college  life  now  passing  out 
of  vogue  in  these  strenuous  times  was  poor  training  for 
any  purpose.  It  is  now  receiving  less  and  less  toler- 
ance. When  the  demand  for  something  above  the 
routine  arises,  the  college  graduate  is  always  the  picked 
man.  This  fact  has  shown  itself  in  the  volunteer  army 
as  in  all  other  ranks  of  effort.  Moreover,  the  young 
men  of  force  and  action  today  are  in  college.  They 
cannot  afford  to  do  without  a  college  course.  Thirty 
years  ago  this  was  not  the  case.  Except  for  social 
and  athletic  matters  the  classical  college  of  that  time 
offered  few  attractions. 

What  the  university  training  has  done  for  mechan- 
ical arts  is  clear,  convincing,  tremendous.  It  can  do 
the  same  for  business,  if  men  of  business  care  to  ask 
its  help.  But  to  this  end  it  must  train  men  for  busi- 
ness by  means  of  men  who  can  use  the  methods  of 
science  in  the  study  of  business.  The  university  must 
take  its  duty  in  this  regard  more  seriously.  We  must 
demand  more  serious  preparation  on  the  part  of  our 
professors  who  deal  with  topics  of  the  time.  I  doubt 
if  half  the  men  who  teach  economics,  finance  or  so- 
ciology in  American  colleges  today  know  what  scien- 
tific research  actually  means.  In  getting  up  a  subject 
the  methods  of  the  journalist  are  quicker  and  easier 
to    handle.      Besides,    plausibility    looks    as    well    as 

141 


HIGHER    EDUCATION    OF    BUSINESS    MAN 

truth.  It  makes  a  bigger  book  and  has  ten  times  the 
s;ile.  Until  the  university  frees  itself  from  that  form 
of  cleverness  which  masquerades  as  science,  whether 
conservative,  sensational  or  emotional,  it  will  not  do 
its  part  toward  the  solution  of  our  national  problems. 
Smartness  without  training  makes  bricks  without  straw. 

The  whole  nature  of  American  business  is  chang- 
ing these  changing  years.  The  successful  business 
man  cannot  run  his  own  little  shop.  He  must  be  part 
of  a  large  system.  The  new  conditions  demand  a  va- 
riety of  talent,  a  range  of  adaptation,  a  breadth  of 
vision,  far  beyond  that  of  even  ten  or  twenty  years 
ago.  It  is  the  era  of  great  projects,  of  great  achieve- 
ments, of  great  cooperation,  and  in  this  each  must 
be  ready  to  take  the  part  assigned  to  him.  Whatever 
we  may  think  of  the  trust  or  combination,  something 
of  the  sort  is  here  to  stay.  Combination  demands 
better  training  than  individual  shopkeeping.  It  de- 
mands a  higher  degree  of  honesty.  A  great  business 
cannot  rest  on  sharp  practice.  It  must  be  above  all 
the  devices  of  the  shopkeeper  or  the  drummer.  Its 
profit  must  lie  in  the  dealer's  legitimate  percentage, 
not  in  the  results  of  haggling  or  bargaining.  The 
great  fortunes  of  the  future  will  be  as  great  as  in  the 
past,  but  they  must  be  won  in  a  more  systematic  way. 
Courage  and  foresight  must  take  the  place  of  smart- 
ness and  selfishness,  and  our  universities  will  supply 
men  of  courage  and  foresight  as  this  demand  arises. 

The  business  of  today  and  of  the  future  demands 
142 


HIGHER    EDUCATION    OF    BUSINESS    MAN 

a  higher  grade  of  intelligence  and  a  more  highly  spe- 
cialized ability  than  the  individual  commerce  of  a  gen- 
eration ago.  It  therefore  demands  higher  traming. 
It  demands  also  a  higher  morality.  No  great  business 
can  rest  permanently  on  a  cutthroat  basis.  In  spite 
of  contrary  appearances,  business  morality  is  on  a 
higher  plane  in  these  days  of  vast  combinations  than 
it  was  when  each  merchant  hunted,  spider  fashion,  for 
his  prey,  and  clerks  were  paid  to  make  black  seem 
-white  and  to  lead  the  unwiUmg  customer  to  buy  what 
he  did  not  want.  The  profits  of  business  are  now  the 
legitimate  gain  of  handling  rather  than  the  fluctuating 
rewards  of  smartness. 

In  many  ways  our  hope  for  relief  from  municipal 
corruption  and  executive  imbecility  rests  with  our 
young  business  men.  Effective  work  for  Civil  Service 
Reform  is  done,  not  by  societies  of  preachers,  college 
professors,  philanthropists  or  agitators,  but  by  business 
men  who  find  that  business  principles  in  public  admin- 
istration are  necessary  to  their  own  business.  In  such 
organizations  the  college  man  of  business  makes  hmi- 
self  felt.  I  know  something  of  merchants'  associa- 
tions, East  and  West,  and  their  far-seeing,  practical, 
virile  way  of  taking  hold  of  things  is  full  of  hope  for 
the  future.  In  municipal  reform  we  need  first  the 
growth  of  the  spirit  of  decency,  which  will  demand 
economy  and  dignity,  and  will  be  satisfied  with  noth- 
ing else.  Little  is  gained  by  sensational,  emotional 
spectacular   reform.     To    dethrone   a   boss    or    send 

143 


HIGHER    EDUCATION    OF    BUSINESS    MAN 


a  few  bad  councilmen  to  jail  avails  little  if  we  stop 
there. 

It  is  said  that  as  Chicaq;o  has  a  great  university 
every  great  city  needs  one  for  the  purification  of  her 
public  life.  This  may  be  true,  but  the  influence  of  the 
university  cannot  be  direct  and  immediate.  Impas- 
sioned university  extension  lectures  on  civic  reform 
are  not  worth  the  atmosphere  they  consume.  To 
move  the  public  and  to  entertain  it  are  two  different 
things,  and  the  orator  is  likely  to  choose  the  line  of 
least  resistance.  The  work  of  the  university  professor 
is  best  accomplished  on  his  own  ground.  He  sways 
the  next  generation,  and  this  vantage-ground  he  must 
give  up  if  he  works  for  immediate  results.  The  uni- 
versity has  a  higher  function  than  that  of  agitating  for 
virtue.  By  dint  of  sound  methods  and  endless  pa- 
tience it  should  send  forth  men  who  can  act  for  virtue, 
not  merely  agitate.  Its  influence  in  politics  is  felt  not 
in  direct  efforts  in  the  primary,  on  the  rostrum,  or  in 
the  journals,  but  in  its  training  of  men. 

Of  all  the  business  men  of  the  world,  those  sent 
out  from  the  American  university  are  the  most  alert, 
the  most  enlightened,  the  keenest  of  mind  and  most 
effective  in  action.  These  are  our  captains  of  indus- 
try, and  the  young  fellows  who  have  worked  their  way 
from  the  streets  to  the  counting-room  as  cash  boys, 
errand  boys  and  apprentices,  must  continue,  a  few 
bright  individuals  excepted,  to  plod  along  in  the  ranks. 

A   recent  writer,    Mr.   R.  T.  Crane,   shows  to  his 

144 


HIGHER    EDUCATION    OF    BUSINESS    MAN 

own  satisfaction  that  a  college  graduate  in  business 
never  gets  his  money  back.  To  this  he  adds  his  own 
opinion  that  the  money  one  gets  is  ' '  seventy-five  per 
cent  of  the  whole  thing."  By  "the  whole  thing," 
he  means  all  joy  and  satisfaction,  all  happiness  and 
success  in  the  world. 

It  may  be,  after  all,  the  mission  of  the  university  to 
give  such  a  view  of  life  and  business  that  seventy-five 
per  cent  of  "the  whole  thing"  cannot  be  measured  in 
money.  If  the  possession  of  wealth  is  seventy-five  per 
cent  of  the  whole  thing,  what  a  world  of  enjoyment 
some  of  us  college  men  have  had  to  which  we  are  not 
entitled !  With  ' '  health  and  a  day, ' '  we  have  ' '  put  the 
pomp  of  emperors  to  shame, ' '  never  dreaming  that  the 
value  of  life  was  not  expressed  in  terms  of  achievement 
and  enjoyment. 


H5 


VIII. 

A    BUSINESS   MAN'S   CONCEPTION 
OF   THE   UNIVERSITY. 

ONE  of  the  greatest  of  the  joys  we  call  aca- 
demic is  that  of  looking  into  the  eyes  of 
young  men  and  young  women  with  the  feel- 
ing that  some  small  part  at  least  of  their 
strength  is  the  work  of  our  own  minds  and  hearts. 
Something  of  the  teacher  we  see  in  the  student,  and, 
from  master  to  pupil,  there  is  a  chain  of  hereditv'  as 
real,  if  not  as  literally  exact,  as  the  bodily  likeness 
that  runs  in  the  blood. 

To  the  founder  of  a  university  a  kindred  satisfac- 
tion is  given,  and  not  for  a  day  or  a  period  only,  but 
for  "changing  cycles  of  years."  It  is  his  part  to 
exchange  gold  for  abundance  of  life.  It  is  his  to 
work  mightily  in  the  aftairs  of  men  centuries  after  his 
personal  opinions  and  influence  are  forgotten.  The 
moral  value  of  the  possession  of  wealth  lies  in  the  use 
to  which  it  is  put.  There  can  be  no  better  use  than 
that  of  making  young  men  and  young  women  wise  and 
clean  and  strong. 

Of  this  right  use  of  money  your  lives  and  mine 
have  been  in  large  degree  a  product.     This  fact  gives 

146 


CONCEPTION    OF    THE    UNIVERSITY 

me  the  theme  of  my  discourse  this  morning,  the  work 
of  Leiand  Stanford  Junior  University  as  it  existed  in 
the  mind  of  the  founder  before  teachers  or  students 
came  to  Palo  Alto  to  make  it  real. 

Our  university  is  now  just  ten  years  old.  Of  all 
foundations  in  America  it  is  the  youngest  save  one, 
the  University  of  Chicago.  Yet  as  universities  go,  in 
our  New  World,  it  has  attained  its  majority.  It  is  old 
enough  to  have  a  character  and  to  be  judged  by  it. 

For  the  broad  principles  of  education  all  univer- 
sities stand,  but  each  one  works  out  its  function  in  its 
own  fashion.  It  is  this  fashion,  this  turn  of  method, 
which  sets  off  one  from  another,  which  gives  each  its 
individual  character.  What  this  character  shall  be  no 
one  force  can  determine.  Its  final  course  is  a  resultant 
of  the  initial  impulse,  the  ideals  it  develops,  and  the 
resistance  of  its  surroundings.  No  one  influence  can 
control  the  final  outcome.  No  one  will  can  determine 
the  result,  where  a  thousand  other  wills  are  also  active. 
Nor  is  the  environment  finally  potent.  Environment  is 
inert,  except  as  the  individual  wills  are  pitted  against  it. 

In  our  own  university  the  initial  impulse  came  from 
the  heart  and  the  brain  of  Leiand  Stanford.  The  ideals 
it  has  upheld  were  his  before  they  were  ours.  They 
had  been  carefully  wrought  out  in  his  mind  before  he 
called  like-minded  m.en  to  his  service  to  carry  them  into 
action.     It  is  well,  once  in  a  while,  to  recall  this  fact. 

I  need  not  repeat  the  story  of  Mr.  Stanford's  life. 
He  was    long  the   most   conspicuous  public    man  of 

147 


CONCEPTION    OF     THE    UNIVERSITY 

California.  He  was  her  war  governor,  wise  and 
patient,  and  respected  of  all  men  before  his  railroad 
enterprises  made  him  the  wealthiest  citizen  of  the 
state.  His  wide  popularity,  the  influence,  personal 
and  political,  which  he  acquired,  did  not  arise  from  his 
wealth.  Wealth,  influence  and  popularity  sprang 
alike  from  his  personal  qualities,  his  persistence,  his 
integrity,  his  long-headedness  and  his  simplicity, 
which  kept  him  always  in  touch  with  the  people. 

"He  was  active,"  it  was  said,  "when  other  men 
were  idle  ;  he  was  generous  when  others  were  grasp- 
ing ;  he  was  lofty  when  other  men  were  base."  He 
was  in  all  relations  of  life  thoroughly  a  man,  and  of 
that  type  —  simple,  earnest,  courageous,  effective  — 
which  we  like  to  call  American. 

The  need  to  train  his  own  son  first  turned  his 
thoughts  to  educational  matters.  His  early  acquaint- 
ance with  Professor  Agassiz,  perhaps  the  greatest  of 
American  teachers,  helped  to  direct  these  thoughts  in- 
to channels  of  wisdom.  From  Agassiz  he  derived  a 
realizing  sense  of  the  possibilities  of  human  knowledge 
and  the  impelling  force  of  man's  intellectual  needs, — 
that  hunger  and  thirst  after  truth  which  only  the  student 
knows.  "  Man's  physical  needs  are  slight, "  he  said, 
' '  but  his  intellectual  needs  are  bounded  only  by  his 
capacity  to  conceive. "  In  the  darkness  of  bereavement 
the  thought  came  to  Mr.  Stanford  that  the  duty  of  his 
life  should  be  to  carry  his  plans  of  educating  his  own  son 
into  effect  for  the  sons  of  others.     After  the  long  vigil 

148 


CONCEPTION    OF    THE    UNIVERSITY 

of  a  dreary  night  he  awoke  with  these  words  on  his 
lips:  "  The  children  of  California  shall  be  my  chil- 
dren. ' '  And  with  characteristic  energy  he  made  this 
vision  fact.  Articles  of  endowment  were  drawn  up, 
lands  and  buildings  and  teachers  were  provided,  and 
on  the  first  day  of  October,  1891,  the  new  universit>' 
opened  its  doors  to  the  children  of  California,  and  to 
those  of  the  rest  of  the  world  as  well. 

With  all  bright  auspices  of  earth  and  sky,  of  hope 
and  purpose,  of  wealth  and  generosity,  the  new  uni- 
versity began.  In  its  history  all  who  are  here  today 
ha\e  taken  some  part.  With  many  of  us  it  represents 
the  best  portion  of  our  lives.  Of  this  I  do  not  now 
wish  to  speak,  but  rather  to  discuss  the  original  impulse 
of  the  founder.  What  was  Leland  Stanford's  idea  of 
a  university,  its  work  and  life  ? 

We  learn,  first,  that  he  would  leave  the  university 
free  to  grow  with  the  coming  ages.  He  would  extend 
no  dead  hand  from  the  grave  to  limit  its  activities  or  to 
control  its  movements.  The  deed  of  gift  is  in  favor  of 
education  pure  and  simple.  It  has  no  hampering 
clause,  and  the  only  end  in  view  is  that  of  the  help  of 
humanity  through  the  extension  of  knowledge.  ' '  W^e 
hope,"  he  said,  "that  this  institution  will  endure 
through  long  ages.  Provisions  regarding  details  of 
management,  however  wise  they  may  be  at  present, 
might  prove  to  be  mischievous  under  conditions  which 
may  arise  in  the  future." 

As  a  practical  man,  accustomed  to  go  to  the  heart 
149 


CONCEPTION    OF   THE    UNIVERSITY 

of  things,  Mr.  Stanford  had  Httle  respect  for  educa- 
tional millinery,  and  for  the  conventionalities  which 
have  grown  up  about  the  great  institutions  of  the  Old 
World,  He  saw  clearly  the  value  of  thoroughness, 
the  need  of  freedom,  the  individuality  of  development, 
but  cared  little  for  the  machinery  by  which  these  ends 
were  achieved.  So  it  was  decreed  that  the  new  uni- 
versity should  be  simple  in  its  organization,  with  only 
those  details  of  structure  which  the  needs  of  the  times 
should  develop  within  it.  If  it  must  have  precedents 
and  traditions,  it  must  make  its  own.  ' '  I  would  have 
this  institution,"  he  said,  "help  to  fit  men  and  women 
for  usefulness  in  this  life,  by  increasing  their  individ- 
ual power  of  production,  and  by  making  them  good 
company  for  themselves  and  others. ' ' 

A  friend  at  Aix-les-Bains  once  argued  with  him 
that  there  is  already  too  much  education,  and  that  to 
increase  it  further  is  simply  to  swell  the  volume  of  dis- 
content. ' '  I  insisted, ' '  Mr.  Stanford  said,  ' '  that 
there  cannot  be  too  much  education  any  more  than 
too  much  health  or  intelligence.  Do  you  happen  to 
know  any  man  who  has  been  too  well  educated? 
Where  does  he  live?  What  is  his  address?  If  you 
cannot  find  such  a  man,  you  cannot  speak  of  over- 
education."  There  has  been  unwise  education  or  mis- 
fit education.  Some  highly  educated  men  are  neither 
wise  nor  fit,  and  there  is  a  kind  of  education  that 
comes  from  experience  and  not  from  books.  But  with 
all  this,  too  thorough  or  too  good  a  training  no  one 

ISO 


CONCEPTION    OF    THE    UNIVERSITY 


ever  had.  Ignorance  is  shadow.  Education  is  Hght. 
Nothing  is  more  unpractical  than  darkness,  nothing  is 
more  practical  than  sunshine. 

Mr.  Stanford  believed  that  no  educational  system 
could  be  complete  in  which  entrance  to  the  university- 
was  a  detached  privilege  of  the  chosen  few.  He  be- 
lieved in  the  unbroken  ladder  from  the  kindergarten 
to  the  university,  a  ladder  that  each  one  should  be  free 
to  climb,  as  far  as  his  ability  or  energy  should  permit. 
He  believed,  with  Ian  Maclaren,  in  keeping  the  path 
well  trodden  from  the  farmhouse  to  the  university. 
He  asked  that  this  sentence  be  placed  on  the  University 
Register  :  "A  generous  education  is  the  birthright  of 
every  man  and  woman  in  America."  In  Emerson's 
words,  "America  means  opportunity, ' '  and  opportunity 
comes  through  training  to  receive  it.  To  have  such 
training  is  to  be  truly  free  born,  and  this  is  the  birth- 
right of  each  child  of  the  Republic. 

Science  is  knowledge  tested  and  set  in  order,  and 
each  advance  in  knowledge  carries  with  it  a  corre- 
sponding increment  of  power.  A  machine,  to  Mr. 
Stanford,  was  not  a  mere  saver  of  labor,  but  an  aid  to 
labor,  increasing  its  efficiency  and  therefore  adding  to 
the  value  of  men.  By  greater  knowledge  of  the  forces 
of  nature  we  acquire  greater  skill  in  turning  these 
forces  into  man's  service  through  the  harness  of  ma- 
chinery. In  increase  of  scientific  knowledge  he  found 
the  secret  of  human  power.  An  education  which 
does  not  disclose  the  secret  of  power  is  unworthy  of 

151 


CONCEPTION    OF    THE    UNIVERSITY 

the  name.  ' '  We  may  always  advance  toward  the  in- 
finite," was  a  favorite  saying  of  his.  He  could  find 
no  limit  to  the  development  of  civilization.  The 
possibilities  of  human  progress  expressed  to  him  the 
measure  of  infinite  goodness.  In  his  own  words,  ' '  The 
beneficence  of  the  Creator  toward  man  on  earth,  and 
the  possibilities  of  humanity,  are  one  and  the  same." 

But  in  his  forecast  of  the  myriad  triumphs  of  ap- 
plied science,  he  did  not  forget  that  knowledge  itself 
must  precede  any  use  man  can  make  of  it.  Pure  sci- 
ence must  always  go  before  applied  science.  The 
higher  forms  of  thought  have  their  place  in  mental 
growth  as  necessities  in  the  concrete  preparation  for 
action. 

In  the  new  university  he  decreed  that  ' '  the  work 
in  applied  sciences  shall  be  carried  on  side  by  side  with 
that  in  the  pure  sciences  and  the  humanities,  and  that, 
so  far  as  may  be,  all  lines  of  work  included  in  the  plan 
of  the  university  shall  be  equally  fostered." 

No  other  university  has  recognized  so  distinctly 
the  absolute  democracy  of  knowledge.  The  earlier 
traditions  of  Cornell  pointed  in  this  direction,  and  for 
this  reason  Mr.  Stanford  found  in  Cornell,  rather  than 
in  Harvard,  Yale,  Johns  Hopkins,  or  Michigan,  the 
nearest  existing  approach  to  his  own  ideal.  It  was 
Ezra  Cornell's  hope  "to  found  an  institution  where 
any  person  could  find  instruction  in  any  study." 
Cornell  and  Stanford,  in  so  far  as  they  are  loyal  to 
these  traditions,   know  neither  favored   students  nor 

152 


CONCEPTION    OF    THE    UNIVERSITY 


favored  studies.  No  class  of  men  are  chosen  to  the 
exclusion  of  others,  and  no  class  of  studies  is  given  a 
fiillacious  importance  through  force  of  academic  pres- 
sure or  through  inertia  of  academic  tradition.  While 
various  kinds  of  knowledge  are  of  varying  worth  to 
different  persons,  each  has  its  own  value  to  the  world, 
and  the  value  to  the  individual  must  be  determined  in 
each  case  by  itself.  The  university  should  be  no  re- 
specter of  persons.  It  is  not  called  on  to  approve  or 
condemn  the  various  orders  of  genius  that  come  to  it 
for  training.  There  has  been  no  greater  hindrance  to 
educational  progress  than  the  hierarchy  of  studies,  the 
fiction  that  certain  kinds  of  work  had  an  invisible 
value  not  to  be  measured  by  tangible  results. 

Mr.  Stanford  shared  with  Agassiz  the  idea  that  the 
essential  part  of  education  was  a  thorough  knowledge 
of  some  one  thing,  so  firmly  held  as  to  be  effective 
for  practical  results.  He  believed  in  early  choice  of 
profession,  in  so  far  as  early  choice  could  be  wise 
choice.  The  course  of  study,  however  broad  and 
however  long,  should  in  all  its  parts  look  toward  the 
final  end  of  effective  life.  The  profession  chosen 
early  gives  a  purpose  and  stimulus  to  all  the  interme- 
diate courses  of  training.  He  saw  clearly  the  need 
of  individualism  in  education,  and  that  courses  of 
study  should  be  built  around  the  individual  man  as  he 
is.  The  supposed  needs  of  the  average  man  as  de- 
veloped by  a  consensus  of  educational  philosophers  do 
not  suffice  for  the  actual  man  as  he  is  in  actual  life 

IS3 


CONCEPTION    OF   THE    UNIVERSITY 

We  must  be  fed  with  the  food  that  is  good  for  us.  It 
is  for  us  that  it  must  be  adapted,  not  for  some  average 
man  in  some  average  age.  The  ready-made  curricu- 
lum belongs  to  the  same  category  as  ready-made 
clothing.  It  is  something  cheap  and  easy  for  the  man 
without  individual  needs. 

Mr.  Stanford's  belief  that  literature  and  engineer- 
ing should  be  pursued  side  by  side  was  shown  by  his 
wish  to  provide  for  both  with  equal  generosity.  And 
the  students  of  each  are  the  gainers  by  this  relation. 
The  de\-otee  of  classical  culture  is  strengthened  by  his 
association  with  men  to  whom  their  college  work  is 
part  of  the  serious  duty  of  life.  The  student  of  en- 
gineering stands  with  both  feet  on  the  ground.  His 
success  in  life  depends  on  the  exactness  of  his  knowl- 
edge of  machinery  and  of  the  basic  principles  of  me- 
chanics and  mathematics.  He  must  be  in  dead  earnest 
if  he  would  succeed  at  all.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
student  of  realities  gains  by  his  association  with  the 
poet,  the  philosopher  and  the  artist.  The  finer  as- 
pects of  life  are  brought  to  his  notice,  and  from  this 
association  results  tolerance  and  breadth  of  sympathy. 

That  women  should  receive  higher  education  as 
well  as  men  was  an  axiom  to  Mr.  Stanford.  Co-edu- 
cation was  taken  for  granted  from  the  first,  and  the 
young  women  of  Stanford  have  never  had  to  question 
the  friendliness  of  their  welcome.  "We  have  pro- 
vided," Mr.  Stanford  says,  "in  the  articles  of  endow- 
ment, that  the  education  of  the  sexes  shall  be  equal  — 

'54 


CONCEPTION    OF    THE    UNIVERSITY 


deeming  it  of  special  importance  that  those  who  are 
to  be  the  mothers  of  a  future  generation  shall  be  fitted 
to  mold  and  direct  the  infantile  mind  at  its  most  critical 
period." 

The  leading  argument  for  co-education  is  akin  to 
the  one  just  indicated  for  the  union  in  one  institution 
of  the  various  lines  of  literature,  art,  science  and  ap- 
plied technology. 

In  women's  education,  as  planned  for  women 
alone,  the  tendency  is  toward  the  study  of  beauty  and 
order.  Literature  and  language  take  precedence  over 
science.  Expression  is  valued  more  highly  than  ac- 
tion. In  carrying  this  to  an  extreme,  the  necessary 
relation  of  thought  to  action  becomes  obscured.  The 
scholarship  developed  tends  to  be  ineffective,  because 
it  is  not  related  to  life.  The  educated  woman  is  likely 
to  master  technique,  rather  than  art;  method,  rather 
than  substance.  She  may  know  a  good  deal,  but  be 
able  to  do  nothing.  Often  her  views  of  life  must  un- 
dergo painful  changes  before  she  can  find  her  place  in 
the  world. 

In  schools  for  men  alone,  the  reverse  condition 
often  obtains.  The  sense  of  reality  obscures  the  ele- 
ments of  beauty  and  fitness.  It  is  of  great  advantage 
to  both  men  and  women  to  meet  on  a  plane  of  equal- 
ity in  education.  Women  are  brought  into  contact 
with  men  who  can  do  things  —  men  in  whom  the  sense 
of  reality  is  strong,  and  who  have  definite  views  in 
life.     This  influence  affects  them  for  good.     It  turns 

155 


CONCEPTION    OF     THE    UNIVERSITY 

them  away  from  sentimentalism.  It  is  opposed  to 
unwholesome  forms  of  hysterical  friendship.  It  gives 
tone  to  their  religious  thoughts  and  impulses.  Above 
all,  it  tends  to  encourage  action  governed  by  ideals, 
as  opposed  to  that  resting  on  caprice.  It  gives  them 
better  standards  of  what  is  possible  and  impossible, 
when  the  responsibility  for  action  is  thrown  upon  them. 

In  like  manner,  the  association  with  wise,  sane 
and  healthy  women  has  its  value  for  young  men. 
This  value  has  never  been  fully  realized,  even  by  the 
strongest  advocates  of  co-education.  It  raises  their 
ideal  of  womanhood,  and  the  highest  m.anhood  must 
be  associated  with  such  an  ideal. 

It  was  the  idea  of  the  founders  that  each  student 
should  be  taught  the  value  of  economy,  — that  lavish 
expenditures  bring  neither  happiness  nor  success.  "A 
student, ' '  it  was  said  by  one  of  the  founders,  ' '  will  be 
better  fitted  to  battle  with  the  trials  and  tribulations 
of  life,  if  he  (or  she)  has  been  taught  the  worth  of 
money,  the  necessity  of  saving,  and  of  overcoming  a 
desire  to  imitate  those  who  are  better  off  in  the  world's 
goods.  For,  when  he  has  learned  how  to  save  and 
how  to  control  inordinate  desires,  he  will  be  relatively 
rich.  During  the  past  three  and  a  half  years  of  close 
observation  on  my  part,  the  importance  of  economy 
has  impressed  itself  forcibly  upon  me,  and  I  wish  it  to 
be  taught  to  all  students  of  the  university.  Nature 
has  made  the  surroundings  of  the  university  beautiful, 
and  the   substantial  character  of  the  buildings  gives 

is6 


CONCEPTION    OF    THE    UNIVERSITY 


them  an  appearance  of  luxury.  I  wish  this  natural 
beauty  and  comparative  luxury  to  impress  upon  the 
students  the  necessity  of  their  preservation  for  the 
generations  that  are  to  follow.  The  lesson  thus  taught 
will  remain  with  them  through  life  and  help  them  to 
teach  the  lesson  to  others.  The  university  buildings 
and  grounds  are  for  their  use  while  students,  in  trust 
for  students  to  come." 

The  value  of  the  study  of  political  and  social 
science  as  a  remedy  for  defects  of  government  was 
clearly  seen  by  Mr.  Stanford.  "All  governments," 
he  said,  "  are  governments  by  public  opinion,  and  in 
the  long  run  every  people  is  as  well  governed  as  it 
deserves."  Hence  increase  of  knowledge  brings 
about  better  government.  For  help  in  such  matters 
the  people  have  a  right  to  look  to  their  universities 
and  university  men.  It  was  his  theory  that  the  art  of 
government  is  still  in  its  infancy.  "  Legislation  has 
not,  as  a  rule,  been  against  the  people,  but  it  has 
failed  to  do  all  the  good  it  might. "  "  No  greater 
blow  can  be  struck  at  labor  than  that  which  renders 
its  products  insecure."  In  the  extension  of  voluntary 
cooperation,  he  saw  a  remedy  for  many  present  ills,  as 
he  saw  in  the  law  of  mutual  help  the  essence  of  our 
Christian  civilization.  He  said,  in  laying  the  corner- 
stone: "  Out  of  these  suggestions  grows  the  consid- 
eration of  the  great  advantages,  especially  to  the  labor- 
ing man,  of  cooperation,  by  which  each  individual 
has  the  benefit  of  the  intellectual  and  physical  forces 

157 


CONCEPTION    OF    THE    UNIVERSITY 

of  his  associates.  It  is  by  the  intelligent  application 
of  these  principles  that  there  will  be  found  the  greatest 
lever  to  elevate  the  mass  of  humanity,  and  laws 
should  be  formed  to  protect  and  develop  cooperative 
associations.  .  .  .  They  will  accomplish  all  that 
is  sought  to  be  secured  by  labor  leagues,  trades  unions 
and  other  federations  of  workmen,  and  will  be  free 
from  the  objection  of  even  impliedly  attempting  to 
take  the  unauthorized  or  wrongful  control  of  the  prop- 
erty, capital,  or  time  of  others." 

One  result  of  voluntary  cooperation,  in  Mr.  Stan- 
ford's view,  would  be  the  development  of  the  spirit  of 
loyalty,  the  most  precious  tribute  of  the  laboring  man 
in  any  grade,  in  any  field,  to  the  interest  or  cause 
which  he  serves.  One  great  evil  of  the  present  era 
of  gigantic  industrial  organizations  is  that  it  takes  no 
account  of  the  spirit  of  loyalty,  without  which  no  man 
can  do  his  best  work.  The  huge  trust  does  away  with 
the  feeling  of  personal  association.  The  equally  huge 
trades  union,  in  many  of  its  operations,  strikes  directly 
at  the  personality  of  the  individual  workman.  It 
makes  him  merely  a  pawn  to  be  moved  hither  and 
thither  in  the  current  of  industrial  war.  In  the  long 
run,  no  enterprise  can  flourish,  unless  those  who  carry 
it  on  throw  themselves,  heart  and  soul,  into  its  service. 
On  the  other  hand,  no  one  can  do  a  greater  injury  to 
the  cause  of  labor  than  to  take  loyalty  out  of  the  cate- 
gory of  working  virtues.  It  is  one  of  the  traditional 
good  traits  of  the  healthy  college  man  to  be  loyal  to 

158 


CONCEPTION    OF    THE    UNIVERSITY 

his  college.  This  virtue  Mr.  Stanford  would  have 
cultivated  in  all  efifective  ways,  and  in  loyalty  on  both 
sides  he  would  find  a  practical  solution  of  most  of  the 
labor  troubles  of  today.  That  he  carried  his  ideas 
into  his  own  practice  is  shown  by  the  unflinching  devo- 
tion of  all  his  own  employees  of  whatever  grade 
throughout  his  life.  They  were  taught  to  believe  in 
him,  to  believe  in  the  worth  of  their  own  work,  and 
thus  to  have  respect  for  themselves.  Much  of  the  dis- 
content of  the  day  has  its  origin  in  lack  of  self-respect. 
The  pawn  that  is  moved  in  the  game  of  sympathetic 
strike  has  no  control  over  his  own  actions,  and  there- 
fore no  respect  for  his  own  motives.  The  develop- 
ment of  intelligent,  voluntary  cooperation,  in  the  long 
run,  must  make  the  workman  more  than  a  machine. 
If  he  is  such,  in  the  long  run  again,  he  will  receive 
whatever  he  deserves.  He  will  be  a  factor  in  civiliza- 
tion, which  the  unskilled,  unthinking  laborer  is  not. 

The  great  economic  waste  in  labor  often  engaged 
Mr.  Stanford's  attention,  and  he  found  its  remedy  in 
education.  "Once,"  he  said,  "the  great  struggle  of 
labor  was  to  supply  the  necessities  of  life;  now,  but  a 
small  portion  of  our  people  are  so  engaged.  Food, 
clothing  and  shelter  are  common  in  our  country  to 
every  provident  person,  excepting,  of  course,  in  occa- 
sional accidental  cases.  The  great  demand  for  labor 
is  to  supply  what  may  be  termed  intellectual  wants, 
to  which  there  is  no  limit,  except  that  of  intelligence 
to  conceive.      If  all  the  relations  and   obligations   of 

'59 


CONCEPTION    OF    THE    UNIVERSITY 

man  were  properly  understood,  it  would  not  be  neces- 
sary for  people  to  make  a  burden  of  labor.  The  great 
masses  of  the  toilers  now  are  compelled  to  perform 
such  an  amount  of  labor  as  makes  life  often  w^earisome. 
An  intelligent  system  of  education  would  correct  this 
inequality.  It  would  make  the  humblest  laborer's 
work  more  valuable,  it  would  increase  both  the  demand 
and  supply  for  skilled  labor,  and  reduce  the  number  of 
the  non-producing  class.  It  would  dignify  labor,  and 
ultimately  would  go  far  to  wipe  out  the  mere  distinc- 
tions of  wealth  and  ancestry.  It  would  achieve  a  blood- 
less revolution  and  establish  a  republic  of  industry, 
merit  and  learning. 

' '  How  near  to  that  state  we  may  be,  or  how  far 
from  it,  we  cannot  now  tell.  It  seems  very  far  when 
we  contemplate  the  great  standing  armies  of  Europe, 
where  over  five  millions  of  men  (or  about  one  for 
every  twelve  adult  males)  are  marching  about  with 
guns  on  their  shoulders  to  preserve  the  peace  of  the 
nations,  while  hovering  near  them  is  an  innumerable 
force  of  police  to  preserve  the  peace  of  individuals ; 
but  when  we  remember  the  possibilities  of  civilization 
and  the  power  of  education,  we  can  foresee  a  time  \/hen 
these  soldiers  and  policemen  shall  be  changed  to  use- 
ful, producing  citizens,  engaged  in  lifting  the  burdens 
of  the  people  instead  of  increasing  them.  And  yet,  ex- 
travagant as  are  the  nations  of  Europe  in  standing 
armies  and  preparations  for  war,  their  extravagance  in 
the  waste   of  labor   is   still   greater.     Education,  by 

1 60 


CONCEPTION    OF   THE    UNIVERSITY 

teaching  the  intelligent  use  of  machinery,  is  the  only 
remedy  for  such  waste. ' ' 

That  the  work  of  the  university  should  be  essential- 
ly specialized,  fitting  the  individual  for  definite  forms 
of  higher  usefulness,  was  an  idea  constantly  present 
with  Mr.  Stanford.  He  had  no  interest  in  general 
education  as  an  end  in  itself.  He  had  no  desire  to  fit 
men  for  the  life  of  leisure,  or  for  any  life  which  did 
not  involve  a  close  adaptation  of  means  to  ends. 

That  the  new  university  would  in  time  attract  great 
numbers  of  students,  Mr.  Stanford  believed  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  although  he  found  few  California  teach- 
ers who  shared  his  optimism.  But  he  was  never  de- 
ceived with  the  cheap  test  of  numbers  in  estimating  the 
value  of  institutions.  He  knew  that  a  few  hundred 
men  well  trained  and  under  high  influences  would 
count  for  more  than  as  many  thousands,  hurried  in 
droves  over  a  ready-made  curriculum  by  young  tutors, 
themselves  scarcely  out  of  college.  So  it  was  decreed 
that  numbers  for  numbers'  sake  should  never  be  a  goal 
of  Stanford  University.  And  he  further  made  the 
practical  request  that  not  one  dollar  directly  or  in- 
directly should  be  spent  in  advertising.  The  university 
has  no  goods  for  which  it  is  anxious  to  find  customers. 

Mr.  Stanford  insisted  as  a  vital  principle  that  the 
university  exists  for  the  benefit  of  its  students,  present, 
past  and  future.  It  has  no  existence  or  function  save 
as  an  instrument  of  education.  To  this  principle  all 
others  should  be  subordinate.    In  his  opening  address, 

i6i 


CONCEPTION    OF    THE    UNIVERSITY 


Mr.  Stanford  said  to  the  students  of  the  Pioneer  Class: 
' '  You  are  the  most  important  factor  in  this  university. 
It  is  for  your  benefit  that  it  has  been  established. ' ' 

The  greatest  need  of  the  student  is  the  teacher. 
Mr.  Stanford  said  :  "In  order  that  the  president  may 
have  the  assistance  of  a  competent  staff  of  professors, 
we  have  provided  that  the  best  talent  obtainable  shall 
be  procured  and  that  liberal  compensation  shall  always 
be  offered. ' '  Again  he  said  :  ' '  Ample  endowment  may 
have  been  provided,  intelligent  management  may  se- 
cure large  income,  students  may  present  themselves  in 
numbers,  but  in  the  end  the  faculty  makes  or  mars  the 
university. ' ' 

Compared  with  the  character  of  the  faculty,  e\'ery 
other  element  in  the  university  is  of  relatively  little 
importance.  Great  teachers  make  a  university  great. 
The  great  teacher  must  always  leave  a  great  mark 
on  every  youth  with  whom  he  comes  in  contact. 
The  chief  duty  of  the  college  president  is  the  choice 
of  teachers.  If  he  has  learned  the  art  of  surround- 
ing himself  with  men  who  are  clean,  sane  and  schol- 
arly, all  other  matters  of  university  administration 
will  take  care  of  themselves.  He  cannot  fail  if  he 
has  good  men  around  him.  And  in  the  choice  of 
teachers  the  element  of  personal  sanity  seemed  of 
first  importance  to  Mr.  Stanford  —  the  ability  to  see 
things  as  they  are.  The  university  chair  should  be  a 
center  of  clear  seeing  from  which  right  acting  should 
radiate. 

162 


CONCEPTION    OF    THE    UNIVERSITY 


That  the  university  should  be  a  center  of  cooper- 
ating research  was  a  vital  element  in  Mr.  Stanford's 
plans.  A  man  content  with  the  truth  that  now  is,  and 
without  ambition  to  venture  into  the  unknown,  should 
not  hold  the  chair  of  a  university  professor.  The  in- 
centive for  research  should  be  within,  not  without.  Its 
motive  should  be  not  the  desire  of  individual  fame,  but 
the  love  of  knowledge. 

In  proportion  to  the  e.^tent  to  which  it  widens  the 
range  of  human  knowledge  and  of  human  power,  in 
that  degree  does  an  institution  deserve  the  name  of 
university.  The  value  of  its  original  work  is  the  best 
single  test  by  which  a  university  may  be  judged;  and 
as  it  is  the  best,  so  is  it  also  the  severest. 

In  its  public  relations,  the  university  stands  for 
infinite  patience,  the  calm  testing  of  ideas  and  ideals. 
It  conducts  no  propaganda,  it  controls  no  affairs  of 
business  or  of  public  action.  It  is  the  judge  of  the 
principles  of  wisdom  and  the  ways  of  nature.  The 
details  of  action  it  must  leave  to  men  whose  business 
it  is  to  guide  the  currents  of  the  moment. 

When  Leland  Stanford  Junior  University  was 
founded,  it  was  provided  that  in  its  religious  Hfe,  as  in 
its  scientific  investigations,  it  should  be  wholly  free 
from  outside  control.  No  religious  sect  or  organi- 
zation and  no  group  of  organizations  should  have 
dominion  over  it.  The  university  should  exist  for  its 
own  sake,  to  carry  out  its  own  purposes,  and  to  bring 
out  its  own  results  in  its  own  way. 

163 


CONCEPTION    OF    THE    UNIVERSITY 

In  this  regard  the  die  is  cast,  once  for  all.  The 
choice  of  the  founders  of  the  university  was  deliberate 
and  final.  They  chose  the  path  of  intellectual  and 
religious  freedom,  in  the  very  interest  of  religion 
itself.  Religion  is  devotion  in  action.  In  its  higher 
reaches  it  must  be  individual,  because  it  is  a  function 
of  the  individual  soul  which  must  stand  in  perpetual 
protest  against  the  religion  that  finds  its  end  in  forms 
and  ceremonies  and  organizations. 

Religion  must  form  the  axis  of  personal  character, 
and  its  prime  importance  the  university  cannot  ignore. 
To  attain  its  culture  it  may  use  indirect  rather  than 
direct  means,  the  influence  of  effort  and  character 
rather  than  the  imposition  of  forms.  To  accept  eccle- 
siastical help  is  to  invite  ecclesiastical  control  toward 
ecclesiastical  ends.  In  the  Grant  of  Endowment  it 
was  required  that  the  trustees  should  ' '  prohibit  secta- 
rian instruction,  but  have  taught  in  the  university  the 
immortality  of  the  soul,  the  existence  of  an  all-wise 
and  benevolent  Creator,  and  obedience  to  his  laws  as 
the  highest  duty  of  man." 

This  requirement  was  a  simple  reflection  of  Mr. 
Stanford's  own  religious  character,  as  expressed  in 
the  words  of  one  very  near  to  him:  "  If  a  firm  belief 
in  a  beneficent  Creator,  a  profound  admiration  for 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  and  his  teachings,  and  the  certainty 
of  a  personal  life  hereafter,  constitute  religion,  then 
Leland  Stanford  was  a  religious  man.  The  narrow 
walls  of  a  creed  could  not  confine  him;   therefore  he 

164 


CONCEPTION    OF    THE    UNIVERSITY 

was  not  a  professed  member  of  any  church,  for  in 
each  confession  of  faith  he  found  something  to  which 
he  could  not  subscribe.  But  for  the  principles  of 
religion  he  had  a  profound  veneration;  in  his  heart 
were  the  true  sentiments  of  Christianity,  and  he  often 
said  that  in  his  opinion  the  Golden  Rule  was  the 
corner-stone  of  all  true  religion." 

The  founders  believed  truly  that  freedom  of 
thought  and  action  would  promote  morality  and  reli- 
gion, that  a  deeper,  fuller  religious  life  would  arise 
from  the  growth  of  the  individual,  that  only  where  the 
' '  winds  of  freedom ' '  blow  will  spring  up  the  highest 
type  of  religious  development.  For  character  is 
formed  from  within  by  the  efforts  and  strivings  and 
aspirations  of  the  individual.  It  can  never  be  imposed 
from  without.  The  will  is  made  strong  from  choosing 
the  right,  not  Irom  having  right  action  enforced  upon 
it.  The  life  of  man  is  ' '  made  beautiful  and  sweet 
through  self-devotion  and  through  self-restraint." 
But  this  must  be  chosen  voluntarily,  else  it  fails  of  its 
purpose. 

The  growth  of  Leland  Stanford  Junioi  University 
must  remain  the  best  evidence  of  its  founder's  wisdom. 
He  had  the  sagacity  to  recognize  the  value  of  higher 
education  and  the  patriotism  to  give  the  rewards  of  a 
successful  life  to  its  advancement.  He  had  the  rarer 
wisdom  to  discriminate  between  the  real  and  the  tem- 
porary in  university  organization  and  management, 
and  his  provision  is  for  the  genuine  and  the  permanent, 

i6s 


CONCEPTION    OF   THE    UNIVERSITY 

not  for  that  "which  speedily  passes  away."  Still 
more  rare,  he  had  the  forethought  to  leave  to  each 
succeeding  generation  the  duty  of  adapting  its  details 
ot  administration  and  methods  to  the  needs  of  the 
time. 

If  the  founder  we  love  and  the  founder  whose 
memory  we  revere  had  said,  ' '  We  will  found  a 
university  so  strong  that  it  may  endure  for  all  the 
centuries,  whose  organization  shall  be  so  free  and 
flexible  that  in  each  age  it  shall  reflect  the  best  spirit 
of  the  time,"  they  could  not  have  given  it  greater 
freedom  of  development  than  it  has  today.  For  the 
glory  of  the  university  must  lie  in  its  freedom,  in  that 
freedom  which  cannot  fall  into  license,  nor  lose  itself 
in  waywardness, — that  freedom  which  knows  but  one 
bond  or  control,  the  eternal  truth  of  God. 


i66 


IX. 

THE    UNIVERSITY   AND    THE 
COMMON    MAN.* 

IF  YOU  ever  climb  the  hill  above  the  Palace  of 
Justice  in  the  city  of  Brussels,  you  will  find  in  a 
little  house  near  the  summit  a  strange  gallery  of 
pictures  wrought  by  the  artist,  Wiertz.  Among 
the  nightmare  products  of  his  morbid  genius  there  is 
one  canvas  which  commands  attention.  It  is  "The 
Man  of  the  Future  and  the  Things  of  the  Past."  It 
represents  a  naturalist  holding  in  his  right  hand  a  large 
magnifying-glass,  while  crowded  in  his  left  hand  are 
Napoleon  and  his  marshals  with  their  cannon  and  battle 
flags  and  all  the  paraphernalia  of  the  great  campaigns. 
He  examines  these  through  the  glass,  while  a  child  by 
his  side  looks  on  in  open-eyed  wonder,  to  see  what  a 
grown  man  can  find  to  care  for  in  such  little  things  as 
these. 

This  allegory,  painted  within  a  dozen  miles  of  the 
field  of  Waterloo  and  but  a  few  years  after  the  echoes 
of  its  cannon  had  ceased  to  reverberate,  was  meant  to 
show  how  small  the  place  Napoleon  really  filled  in  his- 
tory.    When  the  smoke  of  battle  faded  away,  with  it 

*  Address  at  the  inauguration  of  Dr  Edward  Pierrepont  Graves. 
167 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

vanished  the  great  empire  of  Napoleon.  His  con- 
quests, his  victories,  his  glory  and  his  defeat  were  but 
side  episodes  in  the  march  of  events  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  Now  as  this  century  comes  to  its  end,  we 
find  remaining  in  the  social  fabric  of  European  civiliza- 
tion not  a  trace  to  show  that  the  great  warrior  ever 
lived. 

In  all  our  study  of  history  we  find  that  the  kings 
are  slipping  into  the  background.  Once  English  his- 
tory was  divided  into  eras,  each  named  for  the  king 
in  power:  the  era  of  Edward  I,  of  Edward  III,  of 
Henry  V,  of  Elizabeth  and  the  rest.  Now  English 
history  is  the  story  of  the  English  people,  and  the 
birth  or  death  of  no  king  affects  its  continuity.  Once 
in  our  schools  we  studied  the  record  of  the  decline 
and  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire.  Now  we  realize  that 
nothing  that  had  life  in  it  could  decline  and  fall.  The 
decay  of  empires  is  but  the  breaking  of  the  clods 
above  the  growth  of  man.  Books  have  been  written 
on  the  seven  or  eight  ' '  decisive  battles ' '  in  the  history 
of  the  world.  Great  battles  there  have  been,  but  the 
stake  in  any  battle  is  less  than  it  appears.  No  strug- 
gle of  force  against  force  can  ever  be  decisive.  Not 
on  the  field  of  battle  is  the  march  of  events  deter- 
mined. The  growth  of  man  goes  on  whether  battles 
are  lost  or  won.  It  is  written  in  the  nature  of  man  never 
to  be  satisfied  with  wrong.  A  battle  may  decide 
the  fate  of  a  king  or  a  dynasty,  but  not  the  fate  of 
humanity.     The  spirit  of  freedom  is  in  the  heart  of 

i6g 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 


man.  Kings  can  never  crush  it.  Priests  cannot 
smother  it.  It  is  never  buried  in  the  dust  of  defeat. 
The  growth  of  man  goes  on  and  on,  and  the  develop- 
ment of  individual  manhood  is  all  that  is  vital  in 
human  history. 

Not  long  ago,  Earl  Roseberry,  then  Premier  of 
England,  said,  ' '  Royalty  in  England  is  no  longer  a 
political  but  a  social  function."  In  other  words,  the 
king  no  longer  rules  the  body  and  the  souls  of  men. 
He  is  but  an  adornment  to  society,  a  piece  of  historical 
bric-a-brac,  which  fills  an  ornamental  niche  about 
which  old  memories  cluster,  but  which  has  no  regard 
to  present  action.  And  this  indeed  is  true.  The  good 
Victoria  was  not  a  very  queen  in  flesh  and  blood  as 
Mary  was  or  Elizabeth.  Her  royalty  w^as  a  beautiful 
social  fiction.  Her  will  dictated  the  cut  of  the  ladies' 
dressesas  they  entered  her  parlors  at  Balmoral  or  Wind- 
sor. Nothing  more.  No  longer  life  and  fame  hung 
on  the  queen's  word;  neither  was  the  queen's  will  po- 
tent for  peace  or  war.  Over  not  one  of  her  majesty' s 
ships  could  her  majesty  use  the  voice  of  command. 
All  that  concerned  the  history  of  the  Victorian  Age 
lay  as  far  from  the  touch  of  the  good  Empress  of 
India  as  it  lay  from  the  Queen  of  Sheba.  The  Prince 
of  Wales  no  longer  stands  in  his  black  coat  of  armor, 
receiving  the  homage  of  the  conquered  hosts.  In 
black  Prince  Albert  coat,  the  soul  of  propriety,  he 
may  preside  over  agricultural  fairs,  and  m  questions 
of  social  precedence  his  voice  is  still  potent. 

169 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

Even  as  the  kings,  the  day  of  the  nations  is  pass- 
ing, Man  reaches  his  hand  across  the  artificial  boun- 
daries of  states.  The  great  forces  of  human  growth 
are  everywhere  at  work,  and  the  spirit  of  the  times  is 
no  respecter  of  nations.  That  the  nations  make  gross 
expenditures  to  pile  up  barriers  along  their  frontiers, 
is  but  a  sign  that  barriers  crumble  and  are  held  up  by 
force  alone.  The  day  of  empire  passes  swiftly.  Im- 
perialism like  feudalism  is  soon  a  thing  of  the  past. 
Whatever  its  name  or  apparent  form  the  real  govern- 
ment of  civilization  is  democracy.  It  is  public  opin- 
ion that  rules  the  common  judgment  of  the  common 

man. 

"  God  said,  *  I  am  tired  of  kings; 
I  suffer  them  no  more, 
For  to  my  ear  each  morning  brings 
The  outrage  of  the  poor. 
Think  you  I  made  this  ball 
A  field  of  havoc  and  war 
Where  tyrants  small 
Should  harry  the  weak  and  poor? '  " 

And  as  the  kings  failed  the  sceptre  of  power  fell 
from  their  hands.  The  church  could  not  retain  it. 
Through  the  centuries  the  priests  had  tried  in  vain  to 
control  the  destinies  of  men  by  holding  them  in  masses. 
But  masses  can  never  endure.  By  the  movement  of 
the  ages  they  break  up  into  men.  And  each  man 
must  seek  his  own  salvation  in  fear  and  trembling  even 
as  he  seeks  his  own  food  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow. 
Even  as  the  aristocracy  of  piety  could   not  hold  the 

170 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

sceptre  of  power  that  the  kings  let  fall,  so  could  no 
other  aristocracy  keep  it  long.  The  chosen  of  the 
earth  have  dominion  over  themselves  alone.  They 
cannot  permanently  rule  over  you  nor  me.  Not  the 
caste  of  the  wise,  the  learned,  the  strong  of  arm 
or  the  blue  of  blood  can  permanently  endure.  All 
that  lasts  is  the  man,  the  common  man,  and  in  his 
hands,  in  your  hands,  in  my  hands  today  is  the  sceptre 
of  power,  the  sceptre  kings  and  priests  and  lords  could 
never  hold.     What  shall  we  do  with  it  ? 

For  more  than  a  century  now  the  common  man 
has  ruled  America.  How  has  he  used  his  opportu- 
nities? It  is  too  soon  to  answer  this  question.  A 
hundred  years  is  a  time  too  short  for  the  test  of  such 
gigantic  experiments.  Here  in  America  we  have 
made  history  already  —  some  of  it  glorious;  some  of 
it  foolish;  some  of  it  wicked;  much  of  it  made  up  of 
the  old  stories  told  over  again.  We  have  learned 
that  the  social  problems  of  Europe  are  not  kept  away 
from  us  by  the  quarantine  of  democracy.  We  find 
that  the  dead  which  the  dead  past  cannot  bury  are 
thrown  up  on  our  shores.  We  find  that  weakness, 
misery  and  crime  are  still  with  us,  and  that  wherever 
weakness  is  there  is  tyranny  also.  The  essence  of 
tyranny  lies  not  in  the  strength  of  the  strong,  but  in  the 
weakness  of  the  weak.  Even  in  the  free  air  of  America 
there  are  still  millions  who  are  not  free  —  milHons  who 
can  never  be  free  under  any  government  or  under  any 
laws,  so  long  as  they  remain  what  they  are. 

171 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

The  remedy  for  oppression,  then,  is  to  bring  in 
men  who  cannot  be  oppressed.  This  is  the  remedy 
our  fathers  sought;  we  shall  find  no  other.  The 
problem  of  life  is  not  to  make  life  easier,  but  to  make 
men  stronger,  so  that  no  problem  shall  be  beyond 
their  solution.  It  will  be  a  sad  day  for  the  Republic 
when  life  is  easy  for  ignorance,  indolence  and  apathy. 
The  social  order  of  the  present  we  cannot  change 
much  if  we  would.  The  real  work  of  each  genera- 
tion is  to  mold  the  social  order  of  the  future.  The 
grown-up  men  and  women  of  today  are,  in  a  sense, 
past  savmg.  The  best  work  of  the  Republic  is  to 
save  the  children. 

The  one  great  duty  of  a  free  nation  is  education  — 
education,  wise,  thorough,  universal;  the  education, 
not  of  cramming,  but  of  training;  the  education 
that  no  republic  has  ever  given,  and  without  which 
all  republics  must  be  in  whole  or  in  part  failures.  If 
this  generation  should  leave  as  its  legacy  to  the  next 
the  real  education, — training  in  individual  power  and 
skill,  breadth  of  outlook  on  the  world  and  on  life, — 
the  problems  of  the  next  century  would  take  care  of 
themselves.  There  can  be  no  industrial  problem 
where  each  man  is  capable  of  solving  his  own  individ- 
ual problem  for  himself. 

In  this  direction  lies,  I  believe,  the  key  to  all  indus- 
trial and  social  problems.  Reforms  in  education  are 
the  greatest  of  all  reforms.  The  ideal  education  must 
meet  two  demands:  it  must  be  personal,  fitting  a  man 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

or  woman  for  success  in  life;  it  must  be  broad,  giving 
a  man  or  woman  such  an  outlook  on  the  world  that 
this  success  may  be  worthy.  It  should  give  to  each 
man  or  woman  that  reserve  strength  without  which  no 
life  can  be  successful,  because  no  life  can  be  free. 

All  education  must  be  individual  —  fitted  to  indi- 
vidual needs.  That  which  is  not  so  is  unworthy  of 
the  name.  A  misfit  education  is  no  education  at  all. 
Every  man  that  lives  has  a  right  to  some  form  of 
higher  education.  A  generous  education,  as  I  have 
said  more  than  once,  should  be  the  birthright  of  every 
son  and  daughter  of  this  Republic. 

To  furnish  the  higher  education  that  humanity 
needs,  the  college  must  be  as  broad  as  humanity.  No 
spark  of  talent  that  man  may  possess  should  be  out- 
side its  fostering  care.  To  fit  man  into  schemes  of 
education  has  been  the  mistake  of  the  past.  To  fit 
education  to  man  is  the  work  of  the  future. 

The  traditions  of  higher  education  in  America  had 
their  origin  in  social  conditions  very  different  from 
ours.  In  the  Golden  Age  of  Greece,  each  free  man 
stood  on  the  backs  of  nine  slaves.  The  freedom  of 
the  ten  was  the  birthright  of  the  one.  To  train  the 
tenth  man  was  the  function  of  the  early  university. 
Only  free  men  can  be  trained.  A  part  of  this  training 
of  the  tenth  in  the  early  days  was  necessarily  in  the 
arts  by  whicn  the  nine  were  kept  in  subjection. 

The  universities  of  Paris  and  Oxford  and  Cam- 
bridge were   founded   to   educate   the   lord   and  the 

»73 


UNIVERSITY    AND   COMMON    MAN 

priest.  And  to  these  schools  and  their  successors,  as 
time  went  on,  fell  the  duty  of  training  the  gentlemen 
and  the  clergy.  Only  in  our  day  has  it  been  recog- 
nized that  the  common  man  had  part  or  lot  in  higher 
education.  For  now  he  has  come  into  his  own,  and 
he  demands  that  he,  too,  may  be  noble  and  gentle. 

The  old  traditions  are  not  sufficient  for  him.  The 
narrow  processes  by  which  gentlemen  were  trained  in 
mediaeval  Oxford  are  not  adequate  to  the  varied 
demands  of  the  man  of  the  twentieth  century.  He  is 
more  than  a  gentleman.  Heir  to  all  the  ages  he 
must  be;  and  there  are  ages  since,  as  there  were  ages 
before,  the  tasks  set  in  these  schools  became  stereo- 
typed as  culture.  The  need  of  wise  choice  has 
become  a  thousand-fold  greater  with  the  extension  of 
human  knowledge  and  human  power.  The  need  of 
choosing  right  is  steadily  growing  more  and  more  im- 
perative. If  the  common  man  is  to  be  his  own  high 
priest  in  these  strenuous  days,  his  strength  must  be  as 
great,  his  consecration  as  intense  as  it  was  with  those 
who  were  his  rulers  in  ruder  and  less  trying  times. 
The  osmosis  of  classes  is  still  going  on.  By  its  silent 
force  it  has  ' '  pulled  down  the  mighty  from  their  seats, 
and  has  exalted  them  of  low  degree."  Again,  edu- 
cate our  rulers.  We  find  that  they  need  it.  They 
have  in  the  aggregate,  not  yet  the  brains,  nor  the 
conscience,  nor  the  force  of  will  that  fits  them  for  the 
task  the  fates  have  thrown  upon  them. 

If  the  wisdom  of  the  one  is  shared   by  the  ten,  it 

174 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

must  increase  ten-fold  in  amount.  If  it  does  not,  the 
Golden  Age  of  modern  civilization  must  pass  away. 
Every  moment  we  feel  it  slipping  from  our  hands. 
Every  moment  we  must  strive  for  a  fresh  hold. 
"Eternal  vigilance,"  it  was  said  of  old,  "is  the 
price  of  liberty."  And  this  was  what  was  meant. 
The  perpetuation  of  free  institutions  rests  with  free 
men.  The  masses,  the  mobs  of  men,  are  never  free. 
Hence  the  need  of  the  hour  is  to  break  up  the 
masses.  They  should  be  masses  no  longer,  but  indi- 
vidual men  and  women.  The  work  of  higher  educa- 
tion is  to  put  an  end  to  the  rule  of  the  multitude,  to 
turn  the  multitude  into  men. 

The  university  of  today  must  recognize  the  need 
of  the  individual  student  as  the  reason  for  its  exist- 
ence. If  we  are  to  make  men  and  women  out  of 
boys  and  girls,  it  will  be  as  individuals,  not  as  classes. 
The  best  field  of  corn  is  that  in  which  the  individual 
stalks  are  most  strong  and  most  fruitful.  Class  legis- 
lation has  always  proved  pernicious  and  ineffective, 
whether  in  a  university  or  in  a  state.  The  strongest 
nation  is  that  in  which  the  individual  man  is  most  help- 
ful and  most  independent.  The  best  school  is  that 
which  exists  for  the  individual  student.  A  university 
is  not  an  aggregation  of  colleges,  departments  or 
classes.  It  is  built  up  of  young  men  and  women. 
The  student  is  its  unit.  The  basal  idea  of  higher  edu- 
cation is,  that  each  student  should  devote  his  time  and 
strength   to  what  is   best  for  him;   that  no  force  of 

175 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 


tradition,  no  rule  of  restraint,  no  bait  of  a  degree, 
should  swerve  any  one  from  his  best  educational  path. 

"The  way  to  educate  a  man,"  Professor  Anderson 
has  said,  "is  to  set  him  to  work;  the  best  way  to  get 
him  to  work  is  to  interest  him ;  the  best  way  to  interest 
him  is  to  vitalize  his  task  by  relating  it  to  some  form 
of  reality." 

Individualism  in  education  is  no  discovery  of  our 
times.  None  of  us  have  any  patent  on  it.  It  was  by 
no  means  invented  at  Palo  Alto;  neither  was  it  born  at 
Harvard  nor  in  Michigan.  The  need  of  it  is  written 
in  the  heart  of  man.  It  had  found  recognition  where- 
ever  the  ' '  care  and  culture ' '  of  man  had  been  taken 
seriously. 

A  Japanese  writer,  Uchimura,  says  of  education  in 
old  Japan:  "We  were  not  taught  in  classes  then. 
The  grouping  of  soul-bearing  human  beings  into 
classes,  as  sheep  upon  Australian  farms,  was  not 
known  in  our  old  schools.  Our  teachers  believed,  I 
think,  instinctively,  that  man  {persona)  is  unclassifi- 
able;  that  he  must  be  dealt  with  personally  —  i.  e., 
face  to  face,  and  soul  to  soul.  So  they  schooled  us 
one  by  one  —  each  according  to  his  idiosyncrasies, 
physical,  mental  and  spiritual."  Thus  it  was  in  old 
Japan.  Thus  should  it  be  in  new  America.  In  such 
manner  do  the  old  ideas  forever  renew  their  youth, 
when  these  ideas  are  based  not  on  tradition  or  con- 
vention, but  in  the  nature  of  man. 

The  best  care  and  culture  of  man  is  not  that  which 

176 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

restrains  his  weakness,  but  that  which  gives  play  to 
his  strength.  We  should  work  for  the  positive  side 
of  life.  We  should  build  up  ideals  of  effort.  To  get 
rid  of  vice  and  folly  is  to  let  strength  grow  in  their 
place. 

The  great  danger  in  democracy  is  the  seeming  pre- 
dominance of  the  weak.  The  strong  and  the  true 
seem  never  to  be  in  the  majority.  The  politician  who 
knows  the  signs  of  the  times  understands  the  ways  of 
majorities.  He  knows  well  the  weakness  of  the  com- 
mon man.  Injustice,  violence,  fraud  and  corruption 
are  all  expressions  of  it,  and  on  this  weakness  he  plays. 
Hence  the  emptiness  of  party  platforms,  the  silliness 
and  immorality  of  partisan  appeals. 

The  strength  of  the  common  man  the  leaders  do 
not  know.  Ignorant,  venal  and  vacillating,  the  com- 
mon man  is  at  his  worst;  but  he  is  also  earnest,  intelli- 
gent and  determined.  To  know  him  at  his  best,  is 
the  essence  of  real  statesmanship.  His  power  for 
good  may  be  used  as  well  as  his  power  for  evil.  It 
was  this  trust  of  the  common  man  that  made  the 
statesmanship  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  And  under  such 
a  leader  the  common  man  ceased  to  be  common. 

Should  the  common  man  remain  common  ?  This 
some  have  thought,  and  they  have  fought  the  public 
school  as  though  it  were  the  advance  guard  of  an- 
archy. 

My  own  great-grandfather,  John  Elderkin  Waldo, 
said    in    Tolland,    Connecticut,   a  century  ago,  "that 

177 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON     MAN 

there  would  never  be  good  times  in  New  England 
again  until  each  farm  laborer  was  willing  to  work  all 
day  for  '  a  sheep' s  head  and  pluck. '  ' '  That  ' '  the 
times  of  contentment ' '  were  gone,  he  thought  ' '  was 
due  to  the  little  red  schoolhouses  scattered  over  the 
hills  teaching  the  doctrines  of  sedition  and  anarchy." 
But  the  movement  of  democracy  has  been  just  in  the 
opposite  direction  from  that  which  good  Gaffer  Waldo 
upheld.  The  laborers  of  Connecticut  are  the  state  of 
Connecticut  today.  Those  at  the  bottom  a  century 
ago  have  risen  highest  and  have  demanded  the  most. 

The  movement  of  history,  so  far  as  man  is  con- 
cerned, according  to  Sir  Henry  Maine,  has  been  always 
from  status  to  contract.  In  ruder,  coarser  times  a 
man's  state  in  life  is  determined  by  what  his  father 
was.  In  civilization  he  is  what  he  makes  himself.  In 
barbarism,  feudalism,  imperialism,  as  Napoleon  once 
pointed  out,  woman  has  no  rank  at  all.  She  is  what 
father,  lover,  master  or  fate  may  choose  to  make  her. 
In  civilization  she,  too,  has  a  soul,  and  her  place,  like 
that  of  man,  is  that  which  she  may  choose  or  accept. 

The  ideal  of  the  state  of  contract  is,  that  each  man 
or  woman,  each  unit  of  society  or  government,  should 
be  free  to  make  the  most  of  himself.  "A  child  is 
better  unborn  than  untaught."  Or,  in  the  words  of 
Emerson,  "the  best  political  economy  is  the  care  and 
culture  of  men."  Hence  it  is  that  the  very  essence 
of  republicanism  is  popular  education.  There  is  no 
virtue  in  the  acts  of  ignorant  majorities,  unless  by  dint 

178 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

of  repeated  action  the  majority  is  no  longer  ignorant. 
The  very  work  of  ruling  is  in  itself  education.  As 
Americans,  we  believe  in  government  by  the  people. 
This  is  not  that  the  people  are  the  best  of  rulers,  but 
because  a  growth  in  wisdom  is  sure  to  go  with  the 
increase  of  responsibility. 

The  voice  of  the  people  is  not  the  voice  of  God; 
but  if  this  voice  be  smothered,  it  becomes  the  voice 
of  the  demon.  The  red  flag  of  the  anarchist  is  woven 
where  the  people  think  in  silence.  In  popular  gov- 
ernment, it  has  been  said,  ignorance  has  the  same 
right  to  be  represented  as  wisdom.  This  may  be  true, 
but  the  perpetuity  of  such  government  demands  that 
this  fact  of  representation  should  help  to  transform 
ignorance  into  wisdom.  Majorities  are  generally 
wrong,  but  only  through  experience  of  their  mistakes 
is  the  way  opened  to  the  permanent  establishment  of 
right.  The  justification  of  the  experiment  of  universal 
suffrage  is  the  formation  of  a  training-school  in  civics, 
which,  in  the  long  run,  will  bring  about  good  gov- 
ernment. 

Our  fathers  built  for  the  future  —  a  future  even  yet 
unrealized.  America  is  not,  has  never  been,  the  best 
governed  of  civilized  nations.  The  iron-handed  dic- 
tatorship of  Germany  is,  in  its  way,  a  better  govern- 
ment than  our  people  have  ever  given  us.  That  is,  it 
follows  a  more  definite  and  consistent  policy.  Its 
affairs  of  state  are  conducted  with  greater  economy, 
greater  intelligence  and  higher  dignity  than  ours.     It 

179 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

is  above  the  influence  of  the  two  arch-enemies  of  the 
American  state  —  the  corruptionist  and  the  spoilsman. 
If  this  were  all,  we  might  welcome  a  Bismarck  as  our 
ruler,  in  place  of  our  succession  of  weak-armed  and 
short-lived  presidents. 

But  this  is  not  all.  It  is  not  true  that  the  govern- 
ment "which  is  the  best  administered  is  the  best." 
This  is  the  maxim  of  tyranny.  Good  government 
may  be  a  matter  even  of  secondary  importance.  Our 
government  by  the  people  is  for  the  people's  growth. 
It  is  the  great  training-school  in  governmental  meth- 
ods, and  in  the  progress  which  it  insures  lies  the  certain 
pledge  of  better  government  in  the  future.  This 
pledge,  I  believe,  enables  us  to  look  with  confidence 
on  the  gravest  of  political  problems,  problems  that 
other  nations  have  nev^er  solved,  and  that  can  be 
faced  by  no  statesmanship  other  than 

"  The  right  divine  of  man, 
The  millions  trained  to  be  free." 

And  in  spite  of  all  reaction  and  discouragement,  every 
true  American  feels  that  this  trust  in  the  future  is  no 
idle  boast. 

But  popular  education  has  higher  aims  than  those 
involved  in  intelligent  citizenship.  No  country  can 
be  truly  well  governed  in  which  any  person  is  pre- 
vented either  by  interference  or  by  neglect  from  mak- 
ing the  most  of  himself  ' '  Of  all  state  treasures, ' ' 
says  Andrew  D.  White,    "the  genius  and  talent  of 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

citizens  are  the  most  precious.  It  is  a  duty  of  society 
to  itself,  a  duty  that  it  cannot  throw  off,  to  see  that  the 
stock  of  talent  and  genius  in  each  generation  may  have 
a  chance  for  development,  that  it  may  be  added  to  the 
world's  stock  and  aid  in  the  world's  work." 

But  the  work  of  the  free  public  school  cannot  stop 
with  the  rudiments  of  education.  Else  the  common 
man  would  remain  as  common  as  ever.  The  open 
door  of  education  must  be  more  than  a  door.  It  must 
lead  somewhere,  and  to  something  worth  while. 

I  am  not  here  to  plead  the  value  of  higher  educa- 
tion. The  man  who  doubts  it  is  beyond  the  reach  of 
argument.  The  men  who  have  made  our  country  are 
the  educated  men,  not  its  college  graduates,  for  until 
within  the  last  twenty-five  years  college  men  were  not 
themselves  abreast  of  our  own  progress.  The  coun- 
try was  made  by  men  of  broad  views  and  high  ideals, 
and  these  views  and  these  ideals  came  from  them  to 
the  common  man. 

I  do  not  plead  even  for  state  support  of  higher 
education.  That  our  people  have  taken  for  granted, 
however  niggardly  has  been  their  provision  for  it.  If 
the  state  makes  no  provision  for  higher  education 
there  is  no  other  agency  on  which  we  can  depend  to 
supply  it.  Higher  education  by  the  state  is  the  com- 
ing glory  of  democracy.  The  state  university  is  the 
culmination  of  the  state  public  school  system.  With- 
out the  head  the  system  is  itself  ineffective.  Each  part 
of  the  system  draws  its   strength  and  its  inspiration 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

from  the  part  that  is  higher.  Lop  off  the  upper 
branches  of  the  tree,  and  the  sap  ceases  to  rise  in  its 
trunk.  If  the  state  fails  to  furnish  the  means  of  edu- 
cation, higher  or  lower,  these  means  will  never  be  ade- 
quately supplied.  The  people  must  combine  to  do 
this  work,  for  in  the  long  run  no  other  agency  can  do 
it.  Moreover,  any  other  means  of  maintenance  of  the 
university  sooner  or  later  forms  the  entering  wedge 
between  the  school  and  the  people. 

Dr.  Angell  has  lately  said  that  the  history  of  Iowa 
is  the  history  of  her  state  university,  the  greatness  of 
the  state  has  come  through  the  growth  of  the  men  the 
state  has  trained.  What  is  true  of  Iowa  is  far  more 
true  of  Dr.  Angell' s  own  state  of  Michigan.  It  is 
true  of  Washington,  of  Oregon,  of  California,  of  all 
the  states,  each  in  its  degree. 

In  1887  I  spoke  before  the  students  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Minnesota.  Again,  ten  years  later,  I 
stood  on  the  same  platform.  The  change  in  these 
ten  years  seemed  as  the  work  of  magic.  A  few  hun- 
dred students  housed  in  coarse  barracks,  with  few 
teachers  and  scanty  appliances  in  1887;  in  1897  ^ 
magnificent  university,  that  would  no  wise  stand  in 
shame  if  brought  in  comparison  with  Oxford  or  Cam- 
bridge or  the  still  broader  and  sounder  universities  of 
Germany.  Beautiful  buildings,  trained  professors, 
adequate  appliances — all  gathered  together  by  the 
common  people,  all  the  work  of  the  state,  all  part  of 
the  system  of   public   schools,   with  upwards  of  two 

182 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

thousand  students  actually  there  in  person,  the  con- 
trolling percentage  of  the  men  and  the  women  of 
college  age,  in  the  whole  great  state.  In  this  university 
today  is  written  the  history  of  Minnesota  for  the  next 
century.  It  is  an  inspiring  history,  a  history  of  free- 
dom, of  self-reliance,  of  wisdom  and  of  self-restraint. 
As  I  looked  down  into  those  bright  young  eyes  I  felt  that 
I  was  gazing  forward  into  the  future  of  American  de- 
mocracy, that  I  had  looked  into  the  middle  of  the  next 
century  and  I  had  found  it  good. 

But  more  than  one-third  of  these  students  were 
girls,  and  some  one  at  my  elbow  said,  ' '  It  looks  like 
a  girl's  school"  ;  so  in  fact  it  did.  Then  in  thought, 
I  looked  forward  to  the  day  when  these  six  hundred 
girls  should,  most  of  them,  be  centres  of  Minnesota 
homes, —  homes  of  culture,  homes  of  power,  through 
whose  noble  influences  the  work  of  the  university  should 
be  multiplied  a  hundred-fold.  Then  I  blessed  the  wis- 
dom of  the  fathers,  I  rejoiced  in  the  fact  that  our  state 
universities  were  schools  for  women  as  they  are  for 
men.  Within  the  control  of  the  state  universities  are 
the  homes  of  the  twentieth  century,  and  from  these 
homes  of  culture,  purity  and  power  will  come  the  for- 
tunate students  of  the  fortunate  colleges  of  the  years 
to  come. 

James  Bryce  has  said  that  of  all  institutions  in 
America  it  is  of  the  universities  that  we  have  most 
right  to  be  proud.  No  other  institution  in  America 
holds  such  promise  of  the  future.     The  state  univer- 

183 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

sity  is  the  glory  of  our  democracy.  This  I  can  realize 
now  that  I  stand  outside  its  walls,  with  no  part  or  lot 
in  its  successes,  even  better  than  in  the  past  when  with 
such  force  as  I  had,  I  did  battle  in  its  ranks. 

Eighteen  years  ago  it  was  my  fortune  to  speak  to 
the  students  in  the  University  of  Washington.  These 
are  not  the  same  students  before  me  now,  not  the  same 
professors.  Hardly  the  same  university.  Only  the 
same  green  fir-forests,  the  same  blue  waters  of  the 
Sound,  the  same  clear  winding  lakes,  the  same  snow- 
capped Olympics,  and  Baker  and  Rainier,  the  same 
freedom,  the  same  hope. 

In  the  frontier  settlement  of  Seattle,  on  a  hill  in 
the  suburbs,  stood  the  little  territorial  university.  A 
single  wooden  building  with  one  professor,  our  vet- 
eran friend,  Mr.  A.  J.  Anderson,  or  it  may  be  two  pro- 
fessors, and  a  few  dozen  ill-trained  but  eager  students. 
That  was  all  —  only  the  germ  of  a  university  half 
forgotten  among  the  bustling  industries  of  the  frontier. 

It  may  be  that  it  is  only  a  germ  today,  but  the 
foliage  is  expanding  and  there  are  signs  of  flowering 
buds.  It  has  begun  to  gather  power,  to  make  history, 
and  the  history  it  has  really  made  will  appear  in  the 
coming  century  when  the  boys  and  the  girls  before  me 
shall  mold  the  social  life  and  the  political  life  of  the 
great  state  of  the  Northwest. 

We  are  here  to  mark  one  great  step  in  the  growth 
of  the  University  of  Washington,  to  set  up  a  milestone 
in  her  pilgrimage. 

184 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

Mistakes  have  been  made  in  her  past  history. 
These  need  not  concern  us  now,  save  to  make  us 
hope  that  each  has  taught  its  own  lesson.  Mistakes 
may  be  made  in  the  future,  but  the  uhimate  result  is 
sure.  The  university  by  the  lake  is  the  most  valuable 
treasure  your  state  will  ever  possess.  As  the  state 
grows,  so  will  the  university  grow.  As  the  university 
stands  among  its  sister  schools,  so  will  the  state  stand 
among  its  sister  states.  You  cannot  make  Washing- 
ton great  while  you  leave  her  university  to  starve. 
One  great  mistake  you  have  made  —  which  I  fear  you 
can  never  right  again.  You  have  divided  between 
Pullman  and  Seattle  the  strength  that  should  never  be 
divided.  There  is  power  in  concentration,  and  you 
have  wasted  this  power.  You  have  weakened  the 
force  of  higher  education  at  the  behest  of  local  ambi- 
tion, or  it  may  be  sectional  jealousy. 

The  University  of  Washington  exists  for  the  good 
of  its  students.  Through  these  it  must  justify  its 
existence.  For  this  reason  it  should  spend  its  money 
and  its  strength  on  that  only  which  makes  for  educa- 
tion. There  is  no  need  to  worry  about  attendance. 
Students  will  come  when  their  wants  are  met.  They 
will  come  to  a  good  college  and  come  in  numbers, 
though  they  have  to  walk  a  hundred  miles  to  find  it. 
It  is  the  teachers  who  make  the  university.  * '  Have 
a  university  in  shanties,  nay,  in  tents, ' '  said  Cardinal 
Newman,  "but  have  great  teachers  in  it."  There  is 
no  other  requisite  and  there  is  no  substitute.      Build- 

i8s 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

ings,  libraries,  departments,  publications,  names  and 
numbers  do  not  make  a  university.  It  is  the  men  that 
teach.  Once  Emerson  wrote  to  his  daughter,  "It 
matters  little  what  your  studies  are,  it  all  lies  in  who 
your  teacher  is." 

The  future  of  the  University  of  Washington  lies 
in  who  its  teachers  are.  To  choose  its  teachers  is  to 
write  its  future,  and  through  the  future  of  the  univer- 
sity to  write  the  future  of  the  state.  I  know  of  no 
career  more  inspiring  than  that  of  the  president  of  the 
university  of  one  of  the  free,  generous,  growing  com- 
munities we  call  the  United  States.  In  his  hand  is  the 
magic  wand  of  power,  and  to  zealously  and  jealously 
guard  this  he  must  give  the  strength  of  his  life. 

To  your  newly  chosen  president  let  me  say  this: 
It  is  for  you  to  give  color  and  character  and  direc- 
tion to  the  work  of  the  University  of  Washington. 
The  successful  university,  like  the  successful  man,  must 
have  an  individuality  of  its  own.  It  must  stand  for 
something.  Unless  it  has  a  definite  character  and 
purpose  it  does  not  rise  above  the  level  of  a  cheese 
factory.  There  are  American  universities  in  the  vege- 
table stage,  without  will  or  soul,  with  limp-handed 
presidents  and  professors  anxious  only  to  retain  their 
salaries.  Such  universities  do  not  justify  their  ex- 
istence. Good  students  shun  them.  Good  teachers 
scorn  them,  and  the  good  they  do  is  half  evil  because 
they  stand  in  the  way  of  something  better. 

It  is  for  you  to  see  that  the  University  of  Wash- 
i86 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

ington  is  not  of  this  character.  It  is  for  you  to  make 
it  great  —  not  alone  in  its  buildings  or  endowment  or 
the  length  of  its  roll  of  students.  These  are  only 
incidents.  A  university  is  great  only  in  the  spirit 
that  pervades  it.  What  this  spirit  is  depends  on  the 
men  that  make  its  faculty.  To  choose  these  men  is 
your  most  sacred  duty.  This  duty  is  yours  and 
yours  alone.  If  others  take  it  from  you,  they  are 
usurpers  and  it  is  your  duty  today  and  forever  to 
resent  usurpation.  If  you  are  fit  for  the  position  you 
hold  then  you  are  the  fittest  man  in  the  state  to  choose 
the  state's  professors.  No  Board  of  Trustees  should 
take  this  task  from  your  hands;  no  honest  board  will 
try  to  do  so,  unless,  indeed,  through  lack  of  confidence 
in  you.  If  you  cannot  secure  and  hold  the  confi- 
dence of  honest  men,  you  should  not  hold  your 
place.  If  you  have  to  deal  with  men  not  honest, 
then  go  down,  if  fall  you  must,  with  colors  flying. 
Never  consent  to  a  wrong  appointment  to  make  your 
own  position  easy. 

This  only  have  you  a  right  to  consider  in  choosing 
your  coworkers.  Do  the  best  for  the  students  you 
can  with  the  money  you  are  able  to  spend.  No  citi- 
zen in  Washington  has  a  claim  on  the  university. 
There  is  no  man  who  has  earned  the  right  to  be 
appointed  except  by  his  own  excellence  in  scholarship, 
'his  skill  as  a  teacher  and  the  loftiness  of  his  character. 
Neither  personal  nor  political  influence;  not  the  de- 
mands of  churches,  nor  the  claims  of  charity  have  you 

187 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

any  right  to  consider.  No  man  fit  for  a  professorship 
will  ever  try  to  work  such  claims.  Men  have  said 
that  the  state  universities  lie  at  the  mercy  of  poli- 
ticians. If  this  be  true  it  is  because  the  doors  are 
left  in  charge  of  rascals.  If  politics,  using  the  word 
in  the  low  sense,  enter  the  University  of  Washington, 
Dr.  Graves,  let  it  be  over  your  dead  body.  There 
are  martyrs  to  the  cause  of  education  as  well  as  to 
other  causes.  The  blood  of  the  martyrs  is  the  seed 
of  the  church.  The  martyrdom  of  President  Tappan 
made  the  University  of  Michigan.  The  success  of 
Michigan,  the  first  state  university  worthy  the  name, 
gave  a  mighty  inspiration  to  the  whole  system  of  pub- 
lic schools  that  will  some  day  make  America. 

Every  man  who  has  a  right  to  enter  these  halls  as 
professor  should  be  a  man  v/ho  knows.  He  should  be 
a  master  of  the  work  in  hand,  and  above  all  he  should 
be  a  growing  man.  A  growing  man  invites  growth; 
even  mold  will  not  grow  on  a  fossil.  The  teacher 
should  have  ' '  power  enough  to  be  productive. ' '  No 
second-hand  man  was  ever  a  great  teacher.  No 
second-hand  man,  whether  plodder  or  charlatan, 
should  have  place  within  these  consecrated  halls. 

To  secure  worthy  men  your  state  must  pay  worthy 
salaries,  salaries  on  which  a  young  man  can  live  and 
grow.  There  is  no  profession  that  demands  so  much, 
none  that,  on  the  average,  is  so  poorly  paid.  This 
is  because  presidents  and  boards  lack  discrimina- 
tion.    They  pay  the  dullard  and  the  charlatan  the  same 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

salary  they  pay  the  scholar.  The  scholar  will  leave 
sooner  or  later  for  some  place  or  work  where  he  is 
better  appreciated.  The  salaries  you  pay  here  can 
attract  only  young  men  or  weak  men.  The  young 
men  of  power  will  make  reputations  and  go  some- 
where else.  Those  who  will  be  permanently  satisfied 
with  fifteen  hundred  to  two  thousand  a  year  are  only 
the  dregs  of  the  profession.  A  growing  man  must 
travel,  must  have  books,  must  be  able  to  care  for  his 
family.  Without  these  he  cannot  grow.  His  ex- 
penses must  be  large,  his  salary  must  be  larger. 

Doubtless  the  average  professor  isn't  worth  two 
thousand  a  year.  Doubtless  you  could  fill  every 
chair  here  on  five  hundred.  But  that  is  not  the 
point.  The  fact  is,  the  average  college  professor 
is  worth  very  little  indeed.  It  is  not  average  men  but 
real  men  that  make  a  university.  Some  real  men  you 
have  and  you  know  who  they  are.  There  is  no 
excuse  for  you  to  employ  any  others.  Average  men 
and  average  teachers  you  can  buy  tied  in  bunches  at 
any  price  you  choose  to  ofier;  for  real  men  you  must 
look  far  and  wide,  for  they  are  in  constant  demand. 

With  thoroughness  of  training  must  go  sympathy 
and  skill.  The  teacher  must  come  near  to  the  heart 
of  his  students.  The  greatest  teacher  is  the  one  who 
never  forgets  that  he  was  once  a  boy  and  who  knows 
the  aspirations,  the  limitations  and  the  ambitions  of 
the  boys  of  today. 

And  with  all  this,  more  vital  than  all  is  the  demand 
189 


UNIVERSITY    AND    COMMON    MAN 

for  character.  Without  character, — devoted,  rugged, 
strength  of  soul, — no  man  has  a  right  to  teach. 
Along  this  line  every  year  the  profession  is  winnowed 
of  its  chaff.  Vacillating  men,  cynical  men,  perverse 
men,  tricky  men,  visionary  men,  smart  men,  hypo- 
critical men,  beastly  men,  men  who  are  slaves  of 
habit,  weakness  or  vice  are  cast  out  one  by  one  from 
the  profession  into  which  they  have  drifted.  Let  such 
as  these  find  no  asylum  with  you. 

The  highest  function  of  the  university  is  the  forma- 
tion of  character,  the  training  of  men  and  women,  in 
purity  and  strength,  in  sweetness  and  light.  The 
great  teacher  never  fails  to  leave  a  great  mark  on 
•every  young  man  and  young  woman  with  whom  he 
comes  in  contact. 

And  this  mark  of  greatness  in  its  last  analysis  is 
always  a  moral  one.  There  is  no  real  excellence  in 
all  this  world  that  can  be  separated  from  right  living. 
'The  earth,"  says  Emerson,  "is  upheld  by  the 
\'eracity  of  good  men.  They  make  the  world  whole- 
some. ' ' 


190 


X. 

THE    WOMAN    AND    THE 
UNIVERSITY. 

THE  subject  of  the  higher  training  of  young 
women  may  resolve  itself  into  three  ques- 
tions: 

I.  Shall  a  girl  receive  a  college  edu- 
catio7i  ? 

2.  Shall  she  receive  the  same  kind  of  college  edu 
catio?i  as  a  boy  f 

J.  Shall  she  be  educated  i^i  the  same  college  ? 
As  to  the  first  question:  It  must  depend  on  the 
character  of  the  girl.  Precisely  so  with  the  boy. 
What  we  should  do  with  either  depends  on  his  or  her 
possibilities.  No  parent  should  let  either  boy  or  girl 
enter  life  with  any  less  preparation  than  the  best  he 
can  give.  It  is  true  that  many  college  graduates, 
boys  and  girls  alike,  do  not  amount  to  much  after 
the  schools  have  done  all  they  can.  It  is  true,  also, 
that  higher  education  is  not  a  question  alone  of  pre- 
paring great  men  for  great  things.  It  must  prepare 
even  little  men  for  greater  things  than  they  would 
otherwise  have  found  possible.  And  so  it  is  with  the 
education  of  women.     The  needs  of  the  time  are  im- 

191 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNIVERSITY 

perative.  The  highest  product  of  social  evolution  is 
the  growth  of  the  civilized  home,  the  home  that  only 
a  wise,  cultivated  and  high-minded  woman  can  make. 
To  furnish  such  women  is  one  of  the  worthiest  func- 
tions of  higher  education.  No  young  women  capable 
of  becoming  such  should  be  condemned  to  anything 
lower.  Even  with  those  who  are  in  appearance  too 
dull  or  too  vacillating  to  reach  any  high  ideal  of  wis- 
dom, this  may  be  said  —  it  does  no  harm  to  try.  A 
few  hundred  dollars  is  not  much  to  spend  on  an  ex- 
periment of  such  moment.  Four  of  the  best  years 
of  one's  life  spent  in  the  company  of  noble  thoughts 
and  high  ideals  cannot  fail  to  leave  their  impress.  To 
be  wise,  and  at  the  same  time  womanly,  is  to  wield  a 
tremendous  influence,  which  may  be  felt  for  good  in 
the  lives  of  generations  to  come.  It  is  not  forms  of 
government  by  which  men  are  made  and  unmade.  It 
is  the  character  and  influence  of  their  mothers  and 
their  wives.  The  higher  education  of  women  means 
more  for  the  future  than  all  conceivable  legislative 
reforms.  And  its  influence  does  not  stop  with  the 
home.  It  means  higher  standards  of  manhood,  greater 
thoroughness  of  training,  and  the  coming  of  better 
men.  Therefore  let  us  educate  our  girls  as  well  as 
our  boys.  A  generous  education  should  be  the  birth- 
right of  every  daughter  of  the  Republic  as  well  as  of 
every  son. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  among  intelligent  men  and 
women  to  argue  that  a  good  woman  is  a  better  one  for 

192 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNI  V  E  R  S  I  T  Y 

having  received  a  college  education.  Anything  short 
of  this  is  inadequate  for  the  demands  of  modern  life 
and  modern  culture.  The  college  training  should  give 
some  basis  for  critical  judgment  among  the  various 
lines  of  thought  and  effort  which  force  themselves 
upon  our  attention.  Untrained  cleverness  is  said  to 
be  the  most  striking  characteristic  of  the  American 
woman.  Trained  cleverness,  a  very  much  more 
charming  thing,  is  characteristic  of  the  American 
college  woman.  And  when  cleverness  stands  in  the 
right  perspective,  when  it  is  so  strengthened  and 
organized  that  it  becomes  wisdom,  then  it  is  the  most 
valuable  dowry  a  bride  can  bring  to  her  home. 

Even  if  the  four  K's,  "  Kirche,  Kinder,  Kuchen 
and  Kleider,"  are  to  occupy  woman's  life,  as  Em- 
peror William  would  have  us  believe,  the  college  edu- 
cation is  not  too  serious  a  preparation  for  the  profes- 
sion of  directing  them.  A  wise  son  is  one  who  has 
had  a  wise  mother,  and  to  give  alertness,  intelligence 
and  wisdom  is  the  chief  function  of  a  college  educa- 
tion. 

2.  Shall  we  give  07ir  Girls  the  Same  Education 
as  our  Boys  ? 

Yes,  and  no.  If  we  mean  by  the  same,  an  equal 
degree  of  breadth  and  thoroughness,  an  equal  fitness 
for  high  thinking  and  wise  acting,  yes,  let  it  be  the 
same.  If  we  mean  this:  Shall  M^e  reach  this  end  by 
exactly  the  same  course  of  studies?  then  the  answer 
must  be.  No.     For  the  same  course  of  study  will  not 

193 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNIVERSITY 

yield  the  same  results  with  different  persons.  The 
ordinary  "college  course"  which  has  been  handed 
down  from  generation  to  generation  is  purely  conven- 
tional. It  is  a  result  of  a  series  of  compromises  in 
trying  to  fit  the  traditional  education  of  clergymen 
and  gentlemen  to  the  needs  of  a  different  social  era. 
The  old  college  course  met  the  needs  of  nobody,  and 
therefore  was  adapted  to  all  alike.  The  great  educa- 
tional awakening  of  the  last  twenty  years  in  America 
has  lain  in  breaking  the  bonds  of  this  old  system. 
The  essence  of  the  new  education  is  constructive  indi- 
vidualism. Its  purpose  is  to  give  to  each  young  man 
that  training  which  will  make  a  man  of  hi77i.  Not  the 
training  which  a  century  or  two  ago  helped  to  civilize 
the  mass  of  boys  of  that  time,  but  that  which  will 
civilize  this  particular  boy.  The  main  reason  why  the 
college  students  of  today  are  twenty  times  as  many  as 
twenty  years  ago  is  that  the  college  training  now  given 
is  valuable  to  twenty  times  as  many  men  as  could  be 
reached  or  helped  by  the  narrow  courses  of  twenty 
years  ago. 

In  the  university  of  today  the  largest  liberty  of 
choice  in  study  is  given  to  the  student.  The  profess- 
or advises,  the  student  chooses,  and  the  flexibility  of 
the  courses  makes  it  possible  for  every  form  of  talent 
to  receive  proper  culture.  Because  the  college  of 
today  helps  ten  times  as  many  men  as  that  of  yester- 
day could  hope  to  reach,  it  is  ten  times  as  valuable. 
This  difference  lies  in  the  development  of  special  Hues 

194. 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNIVERSITY 

of  work  and  in  the  growth  of  the  elective  system. 
The  power  of  choice  carries  the  duty  of  choosing 
rightly.  The  ability  to  choose  has  made  a  man  out  of 
the  college  boy,  and  has  transferred  college  work  from 
an  alternation  of  tasks  and  play  to  its  proper  relation 
to  the  business  of  life.  Meanwhile  the  old  ideals  have 
not  risen  in  value.  If  our  colleges  were  to  go  back 
to  the  cut-straw  of  mediaevalism,  to  their  work  of 
twenty  years  ago,  their  professors  would  speak  to 
empty  benches.  In  those  colleges  which  still  cling  to 
these  traditions  the  benches  are  empty  today,  or  filled 
with  idlers. 

I  do  not  mean  to  condemn  the  study  of  the  ancient 
classics  and  mathematics  which  made  almost  the  whole 
of  the  older  college  course.  These  studies  must 
always  have  their  place,  but  no  longer  an  exclusive 
place.  The  study  of  the  language  and  literature  of 
Greece  still  ranks  with  the  noblest  efforts  of  the  human 
intelligence.  For  those  who  can  master  it,  Greek 
gives  a  help  not  to  be  obtained  in  any  other  way.  As 
Thoreau  once  observed,  those  who  would  speak  of 
forgetting  the  Greek  are  those  who  never  knew  it. 
But  without  mastery  tliere  is  no  gain  of  strength.  To 
compel  all  men  and  boys  of  whatever  character  or  abil- 
ity to  study  Greek  is  in  itself  a  degradation  of  Greek, 
*  as  it  is  a  hardship  to  those  forced  to  spend  their 
strength  where  it  is  not  effective.  There  are  other 
forms  of  culture  better  fitted  to  other  types  of  man,  and 
the  essential  feature  lies  in  the  strength  of  mastery. 

195 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNIVERSITY 

The  best  education  for  a  young  woman  is  surely 
not  that  which  has  proved  unfit  for  the  young  man. 
She  is  an  individual  as  well  as  he,  and  her  work  gains 
as  much  as  his  by  relating  it  to  her  life.  But  an  insti- 
tution which  meets  the  varied  needs  of  varied  men  can 
also  meet  the  varied  needs  of  varied  women.  The 
intellectual  needs  of  the  two  classes  are  not  very  differ- 
ent in  may  important  respects.  In  so  far  as  these  are 
different  the  elective  system  gives  full  play  for  the  ex- 
pression of  such  differences.  It  is  true  that  most  men 
in  college  look  forward  to  professional  training  and 
that  very  few  women  do  so.  But  the  college  training 
is  not  in  itself  a  part  of  any  profession,  and  it  is  broad 
enough  in  its  range  of  choice  to  point  to  men  and 
women  alike  the  way  to  any  profession  which  may  be 
chosen.  Those  who  have  to  do  with  the  higher  edu- 
cation of  women  know  that  the  severest  demands  can 
be  met  by  them  as  well  as  by  men.  There  is  no  de- 
mand for  easy  or  "goody-goody"  courses  of  study 
for  women  except  as  this  demand  has  been  encouraged 
by  men.  In  this  matter  the  supply  has  always  pre- 
ceded the  demand. 

There  are,  of  course,  certain  average  differences  be- 
tween men  and  women  as  students.  Women  have  often 
greater  sympathy  or  greater  readiness  of  memory  or 
apprehension,  greater  fondness  for  technique.  In  the 
languages  and  literature,  often  in  mathematics  and 
history,  they  are  found  to  excel.  They  lack,  on  the 
whole,  originality.     They   are   not   attracted   by  un- 

196 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNIVERSITY 

solved  problems,  and  in  the  inductive  or  ' '  inexact ' ' 
sciences  they  seldom  take  the  lead.  The  ' '  motor  ' ' 
side  of  their  minds  and  natures  is  not  strongly  de- 
veloped. They  do  not  work  for  results  as  much  as 
for  the  pleasure  of  study.  In  the  traditional  courses 
of  study  —  traditional  for  men — they  are  often  very 
successful.  Not  that  these  courses  ha\'e  a  fitness  for 
women,  but  that  women  are  more  docile  and  less  criti- 
cal as  to  the  purposes  of  education.  And  to  all  these 
statements  there  are  many  exceptions.  In  this,  how- 
ever, those  who  have  taught  both  men  and  women 
must  agree;  the  training  of  women  is  just  as  serious 
and  just  as  important  as  the  training  of  men,  and  no 
training  is  adequate  for  either  which  falls  short  of  the 
best. 

J.  Shall  IVofnefi  be  taught  in  the  Same  Classes 
as  Me7i  f 

This  is  partly  a  matter  of  taste  or  personal  prefer- 
ence. It  does  no  harm  whatever  to  either  men  or 
women  to  meet  those  of  the  other  sex  in  the  same 
classrooms.  But  if  they  prefer  not  to  do  so,  let  them 
do  otherwise.  No  harm  is  done  in  either  case,  nor  has 
the  matter  more  than  secondary  importance.  Much 
has  been  said  for  and  against  the  union  in  one  institu- 
tion of  technical  schools  and  schools  of  liberal  arts. 
The  technical  quality  is  emphasized  by  its  separation 
from  general  culture.  But  I  believe  that  better  men 
are  made  when  the  two  are  brought  more  closely 
tog^ether.      The  culture  studies  and  their  students  frain 

197 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNIVERSITY    * 

from  the  feeling  of  reality  and  utility  cultivated  by 
technical  work.  The  technical  students  gain  from 
association  with  men  and  influences  of  which  the 
aggregate  tendency  is  toward  greater  breadth  of  sym- 
pathy and  a  higher  point  of  view. 

A  woman's  college  is  more  or  less  distinctly  a 
technical  school.  In  most  cases,  its  purpose  is  dis- 
tinctly stated  to  be  such.  It  is  a  school  of  training 
for  the  profession  of  womanhood.  It  encourages 
womanliness  of  thought  as  more  or  less  different  from 
the  plain  thinking  which  is  called  manly.  The  bright- 
est work  in  woman' s  colleges  is  often  accompanied  by 
a  nervous  strain,  as  though  its  doer  were  fearful  of 
falling  short  of  some  outside  standard.  The  best  work 
of  men  is  natural,  is  unconscious,  the  normal  result  of 
the  contact  of  the  mind  with  the  problem  in  question. 

In  this  direction,  I  think,  lies  the  strongest  argu- 
ment for  co-education.  This  argument  is  especially 
cogent  in  institutions  in  which  the  individuality  of  the 
student  is  recognized  and  respected.  In  such  schools 
each  man,  by  his  relation  to  action  and  realities,  be- 
comes a  teacher  of  women  in  these  regards,  as,  in 
other  ways,  each  cultivated  woman  is  a  teacher  of  men. 

In  woman's  education,  as  planned  for  women 
alone,  the  tendency  is  toward  the  study  of  beauty  and 
order.  Literature  and  language  take  precedence  over 
science.  Expression  is  valued  more  highly  than  ac- 
tion. In  carrying  this  to  an  extreme  the  necessary 
relation  of  thought  to  action  becomes  obscured.     The 

198 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNIVERSITY 

scholarship  developed  is  not  efifective,  because  it  is  not 
related  to  success.  The  educated  woman  is  likely  to 
master  technique,  rather  than  art;  method,  rather  than 
substance.  She  may  know  a  good  deal,  but  she  can 
do  nothing.  Often  her  views  of  life  must  undergo 
painful  changes  before  she  can  find  her  place  in  the 
world. 

In  schools  for  men  alone,  the  reverse  condition 
often  obtains.  The  sense  of  reality  obscures  the  ele- 
ments of  beauty  and  fitness.  It  is  of  great  advantage 
to  both  men  and  women  to  meet  on  a  plane  of  equal- 
ity in  education.  Women  are  brought  into  contact 
with  men  who  can  do  things  —  men  in  whom  the  sense 
of  reality  is  strong,  and  who  have  definite  views  of 
life.  This  influence  affects  them  for  good.  It  turns 
them  away  from  sentimentalism.  It  gives  tone  to 
their  religious  thoughts  and  impulses.  Above  all,  it 
tends  to  encourage  action  as  governed  by  ideals,  as 
opposed  to  that  resting  on  caprice.  It  gives  them  bet- 
ter standards  of  what  is  possible  and  impossible  when 
the  responsibility  for  action  is  thrown  upon  them. 

In  like  manner,  the  association  with  wise,  sane  and 
healthy  women  has  its  value  for  young  men.  This 
value  has  never  been  fully  realized,  even  by  the 
strongest  advocates  of  co-education.  It  raises  their 
ideal  of  womanhood,  and  the  highest  manhood  must 
be  associated  with  such  an  ideal.  This  fact  shows 
itself  in  many  ways;  but  to  point  out  its  existence 
must  suffice  for  the  present  paper. 

199 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNIVERSITY 


At  the  present  time  the  demand  for  the  higher 
education  of  women  is  met  in  three  different  ways: 

1.  In  separate  colleges  for  women,  with  courses  of 
study  more  or  less  parallel  with  those  given  in  col- 
leges for  men.  In  some  of  these  the  teachers  are 
all  women,  in  some  mostly  men,  and  in  others  a  more 
or  less  equal  division  obtains.  In  nearly  all  these 
institutions,  those  old  traditions  of  education  and  dis- 
cipline are  more  prevalent  than  in  colleges  for  men, 
and  nearly  all  retain  some  trace  of  religious  or  denom- 
inational control.  In  all,  the  Zeitgeist  is  producing 
more  or  less  commotion,  and  the  changes  in  their  evo- 
lution are  running  parallel  with  those  in  colleges  for 
men. 

2.  In  annexes  for  women  to  colleges  for  men.  \\\ 
these,  part  of  the  instruction  to  the  men  is  repeated  for 
the  women,  though  in  different  classes  or  rooms,  and 
there  is  more  or  less  opportunity  to  use  the  same  libra- 
ries and  museums.  In  some  other  institutions,  the 
relations  are  closer,  the  pri\'ileges  of  study  being  sim- 
ilar, the  difference  being  mainly  in  the  rules  of  con- 
duct by  which  the  young  women  are  hedged  in,  the 
young  men  making  their  own. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  annex  system  cannot  be  a 
permanent  one.  The  annex  student  does  not  get  the 
best  of  the  institution,  and  the  best  is  none  too  good 
for  her.  Sooner  or  later  she  will  demand  it,  or  go 
where  the  best  is  to  be  had.  The  best  students  will 
cease  to  go  to  the  annex.     The   institution  must  then 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    U  N  I  \'  E  R  S  I T  Y 

admit  women  on  equal  terms,  or  not  admit  them  at 
all.  There  is  certainly  no  educational  reason  why  a 
woman  should  prefer  the  annex  of  one  institution 
when  another  equally  good  throws  its  doors  wide 
open  to  her. 

3.  The  third  system  is  that  of  co-education.  In 
this  system  young  men  and  young  women  are  admit- 
ted to  the  same  classes,  subjected  to  the  same  require- 
ments, and  governed  by  the  same  rules.  This  system 
is  now  fully  established  in  the  state  institutions  of  the 
North  and  the  West,  and  in  most  other  colleges  in  the 
same  region.  Its  effectiveness  has  long  since  passed 
beyond  question  among  those  familiar  with  its  opera- 
tion. Other  things  being  equal,  the  young  men  are 
more  earnest,  better  in  manners  and  morals,  and  in  all 
ways  more  civilized  than  under  monastic  conditions. 
The  women  do  more  work  in  a  more  natural  way, 
with  better  perspective  and  with  saner  incentives  than 
when  isolated  from  the  influence  of  the  society  of  men. 
There  is  less  of  silliness  and  folly  where  a  man  is 
not  a  novelty.  In  co-educational  institutions  of  high 
standards,  frivolous  conduct  or  scandals  of  any  form 
are  rarely  known.  The  responsibility  for  decorum  is 
thrown  from  the  school  to  the  woman,  and  the  woman 
rises  to  the  responsibility.  Many  professors  have  en- 
tered Western  colleges  with  strong  prejudices  against 
co-education.  These  prejudices  have  not  often  endured 
the  test  of  experience  with  men  who  have  made  an 
honest  effort  to  form  just  opinions. 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNIVERSITY 

It  is  not  true  that  the  character  of  the  college 
work  has  been  in  any  way  lowered  by  co-education. 
The  reverse  is  decidedly  the  case.  It  is  true  that 
untimely  zeal  of  one  sort  or  another  has  filled  the 
West  with  a  host  of  so-called  colleges.  It  is  true  that 
most  of  these  are  weak  and  doing  poor  work  in  poor 
ways.  It  is  true  that  most  of  these  are  co-educational. 
It  is  also  true  that  the  great  majority  of  their  students 
are  not  of  college  grade  at  all.  In  such  schools  low 
standards  rule,  both  as  to  scholarship  and  as  to  man- 
ners. The  student  fresh  from  the  country,  with  no 
preparatory  training,  will  bring  the  manners  of  his 
home.  These  are  not  always  good  manners,  as  man- 
ners are  judged.  But  none  of  these  defects  is  derived 
from  co-education;  nor  are  any  of  these  conditions 
made  worse  by  it. 

Very  lately  it  is  urged  against  co-education  that 
its  social  demands  cause  too  much  strain  both  on 
young  men  and  young  women.  College  men  and 
college  women,  being  mutually  attractive,  there  are 
developed  too  many  receptions,  dances  and  other 
functions  in  which  they  enjoy  each  other's  company. 
But  this  is  a  matter  easily  regulated.  Furthermore, 
at  the  most  the  average  young  woman  in  college 
spends  in  social  matters  less  than  one-tenth  the  time 
she  would  spend  at  home.  With  the  young  man  the 
whole  matter  represents  the  difference  between  high- 
class  and  low-class  associates  and  associations.  When 
college  men   stand   in    normal    relation  with   college 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNIVERSITY 

women,  meeting  them  in  society  as  well  as  in  the 
classroom,  there  is  distinctly  less  of  drunkenness, 
rowdyism  and  vice  than  obtains  under  other  condi- 
tions. And  no  harm  comes  to  the  young  woman 
through  the  good  influence  she  exerts.  To  meet 
freely  the  best  young  men  she  will  ever  know,  the 
wisest,  cleanest  and  strongest,  can  surely  do  no  harm 
to  a  young  woman.  Nor  will  the  association  with 
the  brightest  and  sanest  young  women  of  the  land 
work  any  harm  to  the  young  men.  This  we  must 
always  recognize.  The  best  young  men  and  the  best 
young  women,  all  things  considered,  are  in  our  col- 
leges.    And  this  has  been  and  will  always  be  the  case. 

It  is  .  true  that  co-education  is  often  attempted 
under  very  adverse  conditions.  Conditions  are  ad- 
verse when  the  little  girls  of  preparatory  schools  and 
schools  of  music  are  mingled  with  the  college  students 
and  given  the  same  freedom.  This  is  wrong,  what- 
ever the  kind  of  discipline  offered,  lax  or  strict;  the 
two  classes  need  a  different  sort  of  treatment. , 

When  young  women  have  no  residence  devoted 
to  their  use,  and  are  forced  to  rent  parlors  and  garrets 
in  private  houses  of  an  unsympathetic  village,  evil 
results  sometimes  arise.  Not  very  often,  to  be  sure, 
but  still  once  in  a  while.  These  are  not  to  be  charged 
to  co-education,  but  to  the  unfit  conditions  that  make 
the  pursuit  of  personal  culture  diiftcult  or  impos- 
sible. Women  are  more  readily  affected  by  sur- 
roundings than  men  are,  and  squalid,  ill-regulated^ 
203 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNIVERSITY 

Bohemian  conditions  should  not  be  part  of  their  higher 
education. 

Another  condition  very  common  and  very  unde- 
sirable is  that  in  which  young  women  live  at  home 
and  traverse  a  city  twice  each  day  on  railway  or  street 
cars  to  meet  their  recitations  in  some  college.  The 
greatest  instrument  of  culture  in  a  college  is  the  "col- 
lege atmosphere,"  the  personal  influence  exerted  by 
its  professors  and  students.  The  college  atmosphere 
develops  feebly  in  the  rush  of  a  great  city.  The 
' '  spur-studenten  ' '  or  railway-track  students,  as  the 
Germans  call  them,  the  students  who  live  far  from  the 
university,  get  very  little  of  this  atmosphere.  The 
young  woman  who  attends  the  university  under  these 
conditions  contributes  nothing  to  the  university  atmos- 
phere, and  therefore  receives  very  little  from  it.  She 
may  attend  her  recitations  and  pass  her  examinations, 
but  she  is  in  all  essential  respects  ' '  in  absentia, ' '  and 
so  far  as  the  best  influences  of  the  university  are  con- 
cerned, she  is  neither  "co-educated"  nor  "edu- 
cated." The  "spur-student"  system  is  bad  enough 
for  young  men,  virtually  wasting  half  their  time. 
With  young  women  the  condition  of  continuous  rail- 
roading, attempted  study  on  the  trains,  the  necessary 
frowsiness  of  railway  travel  and  the  laxness  of  man- 
ners it  cultivates,  are  all  elements  very  undesirable  in 
higher  education.  If  young  women  enter  the  col- 
leges, they  should  demand  that  suitable  place  be  made 
for  them.     Failing  to  find  this,  they  should  look  for  it 

204 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNIVERSITY 

somewhere  else.  Associations  which  develop  vul- 
garity cannot  be  used  for  the  promotion  of  culture 
either  for  men  or  for  women.  That  the  influence  of 
cultured  women  on  the  whole  is  opposed  to  vulgarity 
is  a  powerful  argument  for  education,  and  is  the  secret 
basis  of  much  of  the  agitation  against  it. 

With  all  this  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  recognize 
actual  facts.  There  is  no  question  that  a  reaction  has 
set  in  against  co-education.  The  number  of  those 
who  proclaim  their  unquestioning  faith  is  relatively 
fewer  than  would  have  been  the  case  ten  years  ago. 
This  change  in  sentiment  is  not  universal.  It  will  be 
nowhere  revolutionary.  Young  women  will  not  be 
excluded  from  any  institution  where  they  are  now 
welcomed,  nor  will  the  almost  universal  rule  of  co- 
education in  state  institutions  be  in  any  way  reversed. 
The  reaction  shows  itself  in  a  little  less  ci\^ility  of 
boys  toward  their  sisters  and  the  sisters  of  other 
boys;  in  a  little  more  hedging  on  the  part  of  the  pro- 
fessors; in  a  little  less  pointing  with  pride  on  the  part 
of  college  executive  officials.  There  is  nothing  tan- 
gible in  all  this.  Its  existence  may  be  denied  or 
referred  to  ignorance  or  prejudice. 

But  such  as  it  is,  we  may  for  a  moment  inquire 
into  its  causes.  First  as  to  those  least  worthy.  Here 
we  may  place  the  dislike  of  the  idle  boy  to  have  his 
failures  witnessed  by  women  who  can  do  better.  I 
have  heard  of  such  feelings,  but  I  have  no  evidence 
that  they  play  much  actual  part  in  the  question  at 

205 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNIVERSITY 


issue.  Inferior  women  do  better  work  than  inferior 
men  because  they  are  more  docile  and  have  much  less 
to  distract  their  minds.  But  there  exists  a  strong 
feeling  among  rowdyish  young  men  that  the  prefer- 
ence of  women  interferes  with  rowdyish  practices. 
This  interference  is  resented  by  them,  and  this  resent- 
ment shows  itself  in  the  use  of  the  offensive  term 
"co-ed"  and  of  more  offensive  words  in  vogue  in 
more  rowdyish  places.  I  have  not  often  heard  the 
term  "co-ed"  used  by  gentlemen,  at  least  without 
quotation  marks.  Where  it  is  prevalent,  it  is  a  sign 
that  true  co-education  —  that  is,  education  in  terms  of 
generous  and  welcome  equality  —  does  not  exist.  I 
have  rarely  found  opposition  to  co-education  on  the 
part  of  really  serious  students.  The  majority  are 
strongly  in  favor  of  it,  but  the  minority  in  this  as  in 
many  other  cases  make  the  most  noise.  The  rise 
of  a  student  movement  against  co-education  almost 
always  accompanies  a  general  recrudescence  of  aca- 
demic vulgarity. 

A  little  more  worthy  of  respect  as  well  as  a  little 
more  potent  is  the  influence  of  the  athletic  spirit.  In 
athletic  matters,  the  young  women  give  very  little 
assistance.  They  cannot  play  on  the  teams,  they  can- 
not yell,  and  they  are  rarely  generous  with  their 
money  in  helping  those  who  can.  A  college  of  a 
thousand  students,  half  women,  counts  for  no  more 
athletically  than  one  of  five  hundred,  all  men.  It  is 
vainly  imagined  that  colleges  are  ranked  by  their  ath- 

206 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNIVERSITY 

letic  prowess,  and  that  every  woman  admitted  keeps 
out  a  man,  and  this  man  a  potential  punter  or  sprinter. 
There  is  not  much  truth  in  all  of  this,  and  if  there 
were,  it  is  of  no  consequence.  College  athletics  is  in 
its  essence  by-play,  most  worthy  and  valuable  for 
many  reasons,  but  nevertheless  only  an  adjunct  to  the 
real  work  of  the  college,  which  is  education.  If  a 
phase  of  education  otherwise  desirable  interferes  with 
athletics,  so  much  the  worse  for  athletics. 

Of  like  grade  is  the  feeling  that  men  count  for 
more  than  women,  because  they  are  more  likely  to  be 
heard  from  in  after-life.  Therefore,  their  education  is 
of  more  importance,  and  the  presence  of  women  im- 
pedes it. 

A  certain  adverse  influence  comes  from  the  fact 
that  the  oldest  and  wealthiest  of  our  institutions  are 
for  men  alone  or  for  women  alone.  These  send  out  a 
body  of  alumni  who  know  nothing  of  co-education, 
and  who  judge  it  with  the  positiveness  of  ignorance. 
Most  men  filled  with  the  time-honored  traditions  of 
Harvard  and  Yale,  of  which  the  most  permeating  is 
that  of  Harvard's  and  Yale's  infallibility,  are  against 
co-education  on  general  principles.  Similar  influences 
in  favor  of  the  separate  education  of  women  go  out 
from  the  sister  institutions  of  the  East.  The  methods 
of  the  experimenting,  irreverent,  idol-breaking  West 
find  no  favor  in  their  eyes. 

The  only  serious  new  argument  against  co-educa- 
tion is  that  derived  from  the   fear  of  the  adoption  by 

207 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNIVERSITY 

universities  of  woman's  standards  of  art  and  science 
rather  than  those  of  man,  the  fear  that  amateurism 
uould  take  the  place  of  specialization  in  our  higher 
education.  Women  take  up  higher  education  because 
they  enjoy  it;  men  because  their  careers  depend  upon 
it.  Only  men,  broadly  speaking,  are  capable  of  ob- 
jective studies.  Only  men  can  learn  to  face  fact  with- 
out flinching,  unswayed  by  feeling  or  preference.  The 
reality  with  woman  is  the  way  in  which  the  fact  affects 
her.  Original  investigation,  creative  art,  the  "reso- 
lute facing  of  the  world  as  it  is"  —  all  belong  to  man's 
world,  not  at  all  to  that  of  the  average  woman.  That 
women  in  college  do  as  good  work  as  the  men  is  be- 
yond question.  In  the  university  they  do  not,  for  this 
difference  exists,  the  rare  exceptions  only  proving  the 
rule,  that  women  excel  in  technique,  men  in  actual 
achievement.  If  instruction  through  investigation  is 
the  real  work  of  the  real  university,  then  in  the  real 
university  the  work  of  the  most  gifted  women  may  be 
only  by-play. 

It  has  been  feared  that  the  admission  of  women 
to  the  university  would  vitiate  the  masculinity  of  its 
standards,  that  neatness  of  technique  would  replace 
boldness  of  conception,  and  delicacy  of  taste  replace 
soundness  of  results. 

It  is  claimed  that  the  preponderance  of  high- 
school-educated  women  in  ordinary  society  is  showing 
some  such  effects  in  matters  of  current  opinion.  For 
example,  it  is  claimed    that   the   university  extension 

208 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNIVERSITY 

course  is  no  longer  of  university  nature.  It  is  a  lyceum 
course  designed  to  please  women  who  enjoy  a  little 
poetry,  play  and  music,  who  read  the  novels  of  the 
day,  dabble  in  theosophy.  Christian  science,  or  physic 
psychology,  who  cultivate  their  astral  bodies  and  think 
there  is  something  in  palmistry,  and  are  edified  by  a 
candy-coated  ethics  of  self-realization.  There  is  noth- 
ing ruggedly  true,  nothing  masculine  left  in  it.  Cur- 
rent literature  and  history  are  affected  by  the  same 
influences.  Women  pay  clever  actors  to  teach  them  — 
not  Shakespeare  or  Goethe,  but  how  one  ought  to 
feel  on  reading  King  Lear  or  Faust  or  Saul.  If  the 
women  of  society  do  not  read  a  book  it  will  scarcely 
pay  to  publish  it.  Science  is  popularized  in  the  same 
fashion  by  ceasing  to  be  science  and  becoming  mere 
sentiment  or  pleasing  information.  This  is  shown  by 
the  number  of  books  on  how  to  study  a  bird,  a  flower, 
a  tree,  or  a  star,  through  an  opera-glass,  and  without 
knowing  anything  about  it.  Such  studies  may  be 
good  for  the  feelings  or  even  for  the  moral  nature, 
but  they  have  no  elements  of  that  "fanaticism  for 
veracity,"  which  is  the  highest  attribute  of  the  edu- 
cated man. 

These  results  of  the  education  of  many  women 
and  a  few  men,  by  which  the  half-educated  woman 
becomes  a  controlling  social  factor,  have  been  lately 
set  in  strong  light  by  Dr.  Miinsterberg.  But  they  are 
used  by  him,  not  as  an  argument  against  co-education, 
but  for  the  purpose  of  urging  the  better  education  of 

209 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNIVERSITY 

more  men.  They  form  likewise  an  argument  for  the 
better  education  of  more  women.  The  remedy  for 
feminine  dilettantism  is  found  in  more  severe  training. 
Current  literature  as  shown  in  profitable  editions  re- 
flects the  taste  of  the  leisure  class.  The  women  with 
leisure  who  read  and  discuss  vapid  books  are  not  rep- 
resentative of  woman's  higher  education.  Most  of 
them  have  never  been  educated  at  all.  In  any  event 
this  gives  no  argument  against  co-education.  It  is 
thorough  training,  not  separate  training,  which  is 
indicated  as  the  need  of  the  times.  Where  this  train- 
ing is  taken  is  a  secondary  matter,  though  I  believe, 
with  the  fulness  of  certainty  that  better  results  can  be 
obtained,  mental,  moral  and  physical  in  co-education, 
than  in  any  monastic  form  of  instruction. 

A  final  question:  Does  not  co-education  lead  to 
marriage?  Most  certainly  it  does;  and  this  fact  can- 
not be  and  need  not  be  denied.  The  wonder  is  rather 
that  there  are  not  more  of  such  marriages.  It  is  a 
constant  surprise  that  so  many  college  men  turn  from 
their  college  associates  and  marry  some  earlier  or 
later  acquaintance  of  inferior  ability,  inferior  training 
and  often  inferior  personal  charm.  The  marriages 
which  result  from  college  association  are  not  often 
premature  —  college  men  and  college  women  marry 
later  than  other  men  and  women — and  it  is  certainly 
true  that  no  better  marriages  can  be  made  than  those 
founded  on  common  interests  and  intellectual  friend- 
ships. 


THE    WOMAN    AND    THE    UNIVERSITY 

A  college  man  who  has  known  college  women,  as 
a  rule,  is  not  drawn  to  those  of  lower  ideals  and  in- 
ferior training.  His  choice  is  likely  to  be  led  toward 
the  best  he  has  known.  A  college  woman  is  not  led 
by  mere  propinquity  to  accept  the  attentions  of  inferior 
men. 

Where  college  men  have  chosen  friends  in  all  cases 
both  men  and  women  are  thoroughly  satisfied  with  the 
outcome  of  co-education.  It  is  part  of  the  legitimate 
function  of  higher  education  to  prepare  women,  as 
well  as  men,  for  happy  and  successful  lives. 

An  Eastern  professor,  lately  visiting  a  Western 
state  university,  asked  one  of  the  seniors  what  he 
thought  of  the  question  of  co-education. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  the  student,  "what 
question  do  you  mean?" 

"Why,  co-education,"  said  the  professor,  "the 
education  of  women  in  colleges  for  men." 

"Oh,"  said  the  student,  "co-education  is  not  a 
question  here." 

And  he  was  right.  Co-education  is  never  a  ques- 
tion where  it  has  been  fairly  tried. 


XI. 

THE    UNIVERSITY    OF    THE 
UNITED    STATES. 

THE  most  important  event  in  the  history  of 
modern  Germany  has  been  the  foundation 
of  the  University  of  Berlin.  The  unifica- 
tion of  the  German  empire  was  a  matter 
of  tremendous  significance;  the  success  of  the  Ger- 
man armies  has  widened  the  sphere  of  Teutonic  in- 
fluence; the  recently  adopted  uniform  code  of  laws 
marks  the  progress  of  national  development;  but 
more  important  as  an  epoch-making  event  has  been 
the  building  of  a  great  center  of  human  wisdom  in 
Germany's  chief  capital.  The  influence  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  Berlin  not  only  shows  itself  in  Germany's 
jjreeminence  in  scientific  investigation  and  the  wide 
diffusion  of  liberal  culture,  but  is  felt  in  every  branch 
of  industrial  effort.  There  is  no  trade  or  handiwork 
in  Germany  that  has  not  been  made  more  effective  by 
the  practical  application  of  investigations  made  in  the 
great  university.  There  is  no  line  of  effort  in  which 
men  have  not  become  wiser  through  the  influence  of 
the  noble  minds  brought  together  to  form  this  institu- 
tion. 


UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 

Nor  is  the  influence  of  this  university  and  its  noble 
sister  institutions  confined  solely  or  even  mainly  within 
the  boundaries  of  Germany,  The  great  revival  of 
learning  in  the  United  States,  which  has  shown  itself 
in  the  growth  of  universities,  in  the  rise  of  the  spirit 
of  investigation,  and  in  the  realization  of  the  value 
of  truth,  can  be  traced  in  large  degree  to  Germanic 
influences.  These  influences  have  not  come  to  us 
through  German  immigration,  or  the  presence  of 
German  scholars  among  us,  but  through  the  experi- 
ence of  American  scholars  in  Germany.  If  it  be  true, 
as  Mr.  James  Bryce  says,  that  ' '  of  all  institutions  in 
America,"  the  universities  "have  the  best  promise  for 
the  future, ' '  we  have  Germany  to  thank  for  this.  It 
is,  however,  no  abstract  Germany  that  we  may  thank, 
but  a  concrete  fact.  It  is  the  existence  in  Germany 
of  universities,  strong,  effective  and  free;  and  most 
notable  among  these  is  the  youngest  of  their  number, 
the  University  of  Berlin. 

This  century  has  seen  some  epoch-making  events 
in  the  history  of  our  Republic.  The  war  of  the  Union, 
the  abolition  of  slavery,  —  one  and  the  same  in  es- 
sence,—  mark  the  same  movement  of  the  Republic 
from  mediaevalism  to  civilization.  But  the  great  deed 
of  the  century  still  remains  undone.  Ever  since  the 
time  of  Washington,  our  law-givers  have  contemplated 
building  a  university  at  the  nation's  capital.  They 
have  planned  a  university  that  shall  be  national  and 
American,  as   the  universities  of  Berlin  and  Leipzig 

213 


UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 

are  national  and  German;  a  university  that  shall  be 
the  culmination  of  our  public-school  system,  and  that 
by  its  vivifying  influence  shall  quicken  the  pulse  of 
every  part  of  that  system.  For  more  than  a  century, 
wise  men  have  kept  this  project  in  mind.  For  more 
than  a  century,  wise  men  have  seen  the  pressing  need 
of  its  accomplishment.  For  more  than  a  century, 
however,  the  exigencies  of  politics  or  the  indifference 
of  political  managers  have  caused  postponement  of  its 
final  consideration. 

Meanwhile,  about  the  national  capital;  by  the  very 
necessities  of  the  case,  the  basal  material  of  a  great 
university  has  been  already  gathered.  The  National 
Museum  and  the  Army  Medical  Museum  far  exceed 
all  other  similar  collections  in  America  in  the  amount 
and  value  of  the  material  gathered  for  investigation. 
The  Library  of  Congress  is  our  greatest  public  library; 
and,  in  the  nature  of  things,  it  will  always  remain  so. 
The  Geological  Survey,  the  Coast  and  Geodetic  Sur- 
vey, and  the  biological  divisions  of  the  Department 
of  Agriculture  are  constantly  engaged  in  investiga- 
tions of  the  highest  order,  conducted  by  men  of  uni- 
versity training,  and  possible  to  no  other  men.  The 
United  States  Fish  Commission  is  the  source  of  a  vast 
part  of  our  knowledge  of  the  sea  and  of  sea  life. 
Besides  these  there  are  many  other  bureaus  and  divi- 
sions in  which  scientific  inquiry  constitutes  the  daily 
routine.  The  work  of  these  departments  should  be 
made  useful,   not   only  in   its  conclusions,    but  in  its 

ai4 


UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 

methods.  A  university  consists  of  investigators  teach- 
ing. All  that  the  national  capital  needs  to  make  a 
great  university  of  it,  is  that  a  body  of  real  scholars 
should  be  maintained  to  train  other  men  in  the  work 
now  so  worthily  carried  on.  To  do  this  would  be  to 
bring  to  America,  in  large  degree,  all  that  American 
scholars  now  seek  in  the  University  of  Berlin.  Stu- 
dents will  come  wherever  opportunities  for  investiga- 
tion are  given.  No  standards  of  work  can  be  made 
too  high;  for  the  severest  standards  attract  rather 
than  repel  men  who  are  worth  educating. 

It  should  not  be  necessary  to  bring  arguments  to 
show  the  need  of  a  national  university  in  the  United 
States.  A  university,  we  may  remember,  is  not  a 
school  for  boys  and  girls,  where  the  elements  of  a 
liberal  education  are  taught  to  those  who  have  yet  to 
enter  upon  the  serious  work  of  life.  A  university  is 
not  a  school  maintained  for  the  glory  or  the  extension 
of  any  denominational  body.  In  its  very  definition  a 
university  must  be  above  and  beyond  all  sectarianism. 
Truth  is  as  broad  as  the  universe;  and  no  one  can 
search  for  it  between  any  artificial  boundaries.  As 
well  ask  for  Presbyterian  sunshine  or  a  Baptist  June  as 
to  speak  of  a  denominational  university. 

It  is  said  that  in  America  we  have  already  some 
four  hundred  colleges  and  universities,  and  that,  there- 
fore, we  do  not  need  any  more.  Quite  true;  we  need 
no  more  like  these.  The  splendid  achievement  and 
noble  promise  of  our  universities,  to  which  Mr.  Bryce 


UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 

calls  attention,  is  not  due  to  their  number.  Many  of 
them  do  not  show  this  promise.  If  such  were  to  close 
their  doors  tomorrow,  education  would  be  the  gainer 
by  it.  Many  of  the  four  hundred,  as  we  well  know, 
are  not  universities  in  fact  or  in  spirit.  Most  of  the 
work  done  in  the  best  of  them  is  that  of  the  German 
gymnasium  or  preparatory  school.  The  worst  of 
them  would  in  Germany  be  closed  by  the  police.  But 
in  a  certain  number  of  the  strongest  and  freest  the 
genuine  university  spirit  is  found  in  the  highest  de- 
gree. For  more  of  these  good  ones  there  is  a  crying 
demand.  Their  very  promise  is  a  reason  why  we 
should  do  everything  possible  to  make  them  better. 
A  school  can  rise  to  be  a  university  only  when  its 
teachers  are  university  men;  when  they  are  men 
trained  to  face  directly  and  effectively  the  problems 
of  nature  and  of  life.  To  give  such  training  is  the 
work  of  the  university.  In  an  educational  system 
each  grade  looks  to  the  one  next  higher  for  help  and 
inspiration.  The  place  at  the  head  of  our  system  is 
now  held  by  the  universities  of  a  foreign  land. 

It  is  not  the  needs  of  the  District  of  Columbia 
which  are  to  be  met  by  a  university  of  the  United 
States.  The  local  needs  are  well  supplied  already.  It 
is  the  need  of  the  nation,  —  and  not  of  the  nation 
alone,  but  of  the  world.  A  great  university  in  Amer- 
ica would  be  a  school  for  the  study  of  civic  freedom. 
A  great  university  at  the  caj^ital  of  the  Republic  would 
attract  the  free-minded  of  all  the  earth.     It  would  draw 

216 


UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 

men  of  all  lands  to  the  study  of  democracy.  It  would 
tend  to  make  the  workings  of  democracy  worthy  of  re- 
spectful study.  The  New  World  has  its  lessons  as  well 
as  the  Old;  and  its  material  for  teaching  these  lessons 
should  be  made  equally  adequate.  Mold  and  ruin  are 
not  necessary  to  a  university';  nor  are  traditions  and 
precedents  essential  to  its  effectiveness.  The  greatest 
of  Europe's  universities  is  one  of  her  very  youngest. 
Much  of  the  greatness  of  the  University  of  Berlin  is 
due  to  her  escape  from  the  dead  hands  of  the  past. 
It  is  in  this  release  that  the  great  promise  of  the 
American  university  lies.  Oxford  and  Cambridge 
are  still  choked  by  the  dust  of  their  own  traditions. 
Because  this  is  so  we  may  doubt  whether  England  has 
today  any  universities  at  all,  but  merely  imgenious  and 
venerable  substitutes. 

The  national  university  should  not  be  an  institu- 
tion of  general  education,  with  its  rules  and  regula- 
tions, college  classes,  good-fellowship,  and  football 
team.  It  should  be  the  place  for  the  training  of  inves- 
tigators and  of  men  of  action.  It  should  admit  no 
student  who  is  under  age  or  who  has  not  a  definite 
purpose  to  accomplish.  It  has  no  time  or  strength  to 
spend  in  laying  the  foundations  for  education.  Its 
function  lies  not  in  the  conduct  of  examinations,  or 
the  granting  of  academic  degrees.  It  is  not  essential 
that  it  should  give  professional  training  of  any  kind, 
though  that  would  be  desirable.  It  should  have  the 
same   relation  to  Harvard   and  Columbia   and  Johns 

21  7 


UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 

Hopkins  that  Berlin  University  now  holds.  It  should 
fill,  with  noble  adequacy,  the  place  which  the  graduate 
departments  of  our  real  universities  partially  occupy. 
In  doing  so  it  would  furnish  a  stimulus  which  would 
strengthen  all  similar  work  throughout  the  land. 

Graduate  work  has  yet  to  be  taken  seriously  by 
American  universities.  Their  teachers  have  carried 
on  original  research,  if  at  all,  in  hours  stolen  from 
their  daily  tasks  of  plodding  and  prodding.  The 
graduate  student  has  been  allowed  to  shift  for  himself; 
and  he  has  been  encouraged  to  select  a  university  not 
for  the  training  it  offers,  but  because  of  some  bonus 
in  the  form  of  scholarships.  The  ' '  free  lunch ' '  in- 
ducement to  investigation  will  never  build  up  a  univer- 
sity. Fellowships  can  never  take  the  place  of  men  or 
books  or  apparatus  in  developing  the  university  spirit. 
Great  libraries  and  adequate  facilities  for  work  are 
costly;  and  no  American  institution  has  yet  gathered 
together  such  essentials  for  university  work  as  already 
exist  at  Washington. 

If  a  national  university  is  a  national  need,  it  is  the 
duty  of  the  people  to  meet  and  satisfy  it.  No  other 
power  can  do  it.  As  well  ask  wealthy  manufacturers 
or  wealthy  churches  to  endow  and  support  our  su- 
preme court  of  law  as  to  endow  and  support  our 
supreme  university.  They  cannot  do  it;  they  will  not 
do  it;  and,  as  free  men,  we  would  not  have  them  do 
it  if  they  would.  As  to  this,  Mr.  John  W.  Hoyt  —  a 
man  who  for  years  has  nobly  led  in  the  effort  to  estab- 

218 


UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 

lish  a  national  university  —  uses  these  strong  words: 
"What  should  the  nation  undertake  to  accomplish? 
What  the  citizen  has  not  done  and  cannot  do,  is  our 
answer.  The  citizen  may  create  a  very  worthy  and 
quite  important  private  institution,  some  of  which 
may  be  named  today,  but  no  citizen,  however  great 
his  fortune,  and  no  single  commonwealth,  much  less 
any  sectarian  organization  or  any  combination  of  these, 
can  create  an  institution  that  shall  be  so  wholly  free 
from  bias  of  any  and  every  sort;  that  shall  complete 
our  public  educational  system;  that  shall  exert  so 
nationalizing  and  harmonizing  an  influence  upon  all  por- 
tions of  our  great  country;  that  shall  be  always  ready 
to  meet  the  demands  of  the  government  for  service  in 
whatsoever  field,  and  that  shall  at  the  same  time  secure 
to  the  United  States  an  acknowledged  ascendancy  in 
the  ever- widening  field  of  intellectual  activity." 

A  university  bears  the  stamp  of  its  origin.  What- 
ever its  origin,  the  university  ennobles  it.  But  a  na- 
tional university  must  spring  from  the  people.  It 
must  be  paid  for  by  them;  and  it  must  have  its  final 
justification  in  the  upbuilding  of  the  nation.  What- 
ever institutions  the  people  need,  the  people  must 
create  and  control.  That  this  can  be  done  wisely  is 
no  matter  of  theory.  With  all  their  mistakes  and 
crudities,  the  state  universities  of  this  country  con- 
stitute the  most  hopeful  feature  in  our  whole  educa- 
tional system.  Doubtless  the  weakness  and  folly  of 
the  people  have  affected  them  injuriously  from  time  to 

219 


UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 

time.  This  is  not  the  point.  We  must  think  of  the  effect 
they  ha\'e  had  in  curing  the  people  of  weakness  and 
folly.  "The  history  of  Iowa,"  says  Dr.  Angell,  "is 
the  history  of  her  state  university. ' '  The  same  thing 
is  grandly  and  emphatically  true  of  Dr.  Angell' s  own 
state  of  Michigan.  In  its  degree  the  history  of  every 
state  is  molded  by  its  highest  institution  of  learning. 
As  I  have  had  occasion  to  say  once  before, — 
' '  Many  trials  are  made  in  popular  government ; 
many  blunders  are  committed  before  any  given  piece 
of  work  falls  into  the  hands  of  competent  men.  But 
mistakes  are  a  source  of  education.  Sooner  or  later 
the  right  man  will  be  found  and  the  right  management 
of  a  public  institution  will  justify  itself.  What  is  well 
done  can  never  be  wholly  undone.  In  the  long  run, 
few  institutions  are  less  subject  to  partisan  influence 
than  a  state  university.  When  the  foul  grip  of  the 
spoilsman  is  once  unloosed,  it  can  never  be  restored. 
In  the  evil  days  which  befell  the  politics  of  Virginia, 
when  the  fair  name  of  the  state  was  traded  upon  by 
spoilsmen  of  every  party,  of  every  degree,  the  one  thing 
in  the  state  never  touched  by  them  was  the  honor  of  the 
University  of  Virginia.  And  amid  all  the  scandal  and 
disorder  which  followed  our  civil  war,  what  finger  of 
evil  has  been  laid  on  the  Smithsonian  Institution  or 
the  Military  Academy  at  West  Point."*  On  that  which 
is  intended  for  no  \enal  end,  the  people  will  tolerate 
no  venal  domination.  In  due  time  the  management  of 
every  public  institution  will  be  abreast  of  the  highest 


UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 

popular  opinion.  Sooner  or  later  the  wise  man  leads  ; 
for  his  ability  to  lead  is  at  once  the  test  and  proof 
of  his  wisdom." 

Some  of  the  half-hearted  friends  of  the  national 
university  have  been  fearful  lest  partisan  influence 
should  control  it.  They  fear  lest  it  should  become  a 
prey  to  the  evils  which  have  disgraced  our  Civil 
Service;  lest  the  shadow  of  the  boss  should  darken 
the  doors  of  the  university  with  the  paralyzing  influ- 
ence which  it  has  exerted  on  the  employees  of  the 
Custom  House.  I  believe  this  to  be  a  groundless 
fear.  All  plans  for  a  national  university  provide  for 
a  non-partisan  board  of  control.  Its  ex  officio  mem- 
bers are  to  be  chosen  from  the  ablest  jurists  and  wisest 
men  of  science  the  country  can  claim.  Such  a  board 
now  controls  the  National  Museum  and  the  Smithso- 
nian Institution;  and  no  accusation  of  partisanship  or 
favoritism  has  ever  been  brought  against  it. 

A  university  could  not  be  otherwise  than  free.  Its 
faculty  could  respond  only  to  the  noblest  influences. 
No  man  could  receive  an  appointment  of  national 
prominence,  in  the  face  of  glaring  unfitness;  and  each 
man  chosen  to  a  position  in  a  national  faculty  would 
feel  the  honor  of  his  profession  at  stake  in  repelling  all 
degrading  influences.  Even  if  occasionally  an  unwise 
appointment  should  be  made,  the  action  would  correct 
itself.  To  a  university,  men  and  women  go  for  indi- 
vidual help  and  training.  A  pretender  in  a  university 
could    not   give   such    help.      His    presence   is  soon 


UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    UNITED    STATES 

detected  by  his  fellows  and  by  his  students.  The  latter 
he  could  not  harm,  for  he  could  not  retain  them.  By 
the  side  of  his  fellows  he  could  not  maintain  himself. 
No  body  of  men  is  so  resistant  to  coercion  or  con- 
tamination as  a  university  faculty.  A  scholar  is  a 
free  man.  He  has  always  been  so.  He  will  always 
remain  so.  The  danger,  that  a  body  of  men  such  as 
constitute  the  university  faculty  of  Harvard  or  Yale  or 
Columbia  or  Princeton  or  Chicago  or  Cornell  would 
be  contaminated  by  Washington  politics,  is  sheer  non- 
sense. Such  an  idea  has  no  basis  in  experience.  It  is 
urged  only  for  lack  of  better  arguments.  Such  oppo- 
sition to  the  national  university  as  has  yet  appeared 
seems  to  rest  on  distrust  of  democracy  itself  or  on 
concealed  hatred  of  secular  education.  To  one  or 
the  other  of  these  influences  can  be  traced  nearly 
every  assault  yet  made  on  any  part  of  the  system  of 
popular  education. 

The  fear  that  the  university  would  be  contaminated 
by  political  associations  is  therefore  groundless.  But 
what  about  the  hope  from  such  associations?  An  edu- 
cated politician  may  become  a  statesman,  and  we  may 
look  for  tremendous  results  for  good  from  the  pres- 
ence of  trained  economists  and  historians  and  jurists 
at  the  national  capital.  It  would  in  itself  be  an  influ- 
ence for  good  legislation  and  good  administration 
greater  than  any  that  we  know,  /is  President  Cleve- 
land said  at  Princeton  University  on  the  occasion  of  its 
sesquicentennial  celebration : 


UNIVERSITY    OF    THE    UNITED   STATES 

"The  worth  of  educated  men  in  purifying  and 
steadying  popular  sentiment  would  be  more  useful  if 
it  were  less  si)asmodic  and  occasional.  .  .  .  Our 
people  readily  listen  to  those  who  exhibit  a  real  fel- 
lowship and  friendly  and  habitual  interest  in  all  that 
concerns  the  common  welfare.  Such  a  condition  of 
intimacy  would  not  only  improve  the  general  political 
atmosphere,  but  would  vastly  increase  the  influence 
of  our  universities  in  their  efforts  to  prevent  popular 
delusions  or  correct  them  before  they  reach  an  acute 
or  dangerous  stage. ' ' 

The  scholars  and  investigators  now  maintained  at 
Washington  exert  an  influence  far  beyond  that  of  their 
ofiicial  position.  If  the  Harvard  faculty  and  its  grad- 
uate students  met  on  the  Capitol  hill,  if  their  influence 
were  in  the  departmental  work,  and  their  presence  in 
social  life,  Washington  would  become  a  changed  city. 
To  the  force  of  high  training  and  academic  self-devo- 
tion is  to  be  traced  the  immense  influence  exerted  in 
Washington  by  Joseph  Henry,  Spencer  F.  Baird,  and 
Brown  Goode.  Of  such  men  as  these  are  universities 
made.  When  such  men  are  systematically  selected 
from  our  body  of  university  professors  and  brought 
to  Washington  and  allowed  to  surround  themselves 
with  like  men  of  the  next  generation,  we  shall  indeed 
have  a  national  capital.  By  this  means  we  shall  create 
the  best  guarantee  of  the  perpetuity  of  our  Republic; 
that  it  shall  not,  like  the  republics  of  old,  ' '  go  down 
in  unreason,  anarchy,  and  blood."     In  the  long  run, 

2Z3 


UNIVERSITY    OF   THE    UNITED    STATES 

the  voters  of  a  nation  must  be  led  by  its  wisest  men. 
Their  wisdom  must  become  the  wisdom  of  the  many, 
else  the  nation  will  perish.  A  university  is  simply  a 
contrivance  for  making  wisdom  effective  by  surround- 
ing wise  men  with  the  conditions  most  favorable  for 
rendering  wisdom  contagious.  There  is  no  instru- 
ment of  political,  social,  or  administrative  reform  to 
be  compared  with  the  influence  of  a  national  uni- 
versity. 


224 


XII. 
COLLEGE   SPIRIT.* 

COLLEGE  SPIRIT  is  the  esprit  de  corps 
among  college  men,  the  feeling  shared  by 
all  who  have  breathed  the  same  college 
atmosphere.  That  each  successful  college 
must  have  a  college  atmosphere  and  that  this  atmos- 
phere must  find  its  expression  in  college  spirit  we  are  all 
agreed.  We  do  not  seem  quite  so  sure  as  to  the  best 
form  this  spirit  should  take.  Doubtless  the  atmos- 
phere should  be  one  of  plain  living  and  high  thinking, 
with  flashes  of  color  from  men  of  gifted  personality; 
one  of  mutual  help  and  mutual  forbearance,  with  the 
struggles  and  rewards  of  after-life  showing  more  or 
less  clearly  in  perspective.  Doubtless  the  college 
spirit  should  be  one  of  comradery  in  worthy  ambi- 
tions, of  full-tempered  jollity,  with  a  strong  undercur- 
rent of  something  which  is  very  like  patriotism.  Not 
"my  college  right  or  wrong,"  but  "my  college; 
when  she  is  wrong,  I  will  do  everything  to  make  her 
right.  I  believe  in  her.  I  glory  in  her  good  name. 
I  wish  her  degree  to  be  a  mark  of  honor.  I  will  sac- 
rifice my  convenience,  my  fun,  my  success  even  to 
save  her  good  name  from  tarnish. ' ' 

*Abstract  ot  an  address  delivered  in  April,  1903,  at  the 
University  of  Missouri. 

225 


COLLEGE    SPIRIT 


There  is  no  better  definition  of  the  college  spirit 
than  that  given  in  the  old  University  of  Greifeswald 
nearly  400  years  ago.  This  was  the  phrase  of  Ulrich 
von  Hutten,  "Gemeingeist  unter  freien  Geistern, " 
"Comradeship  among  free  spirits."  "Free  should 
the  scholar  be,  free  and  brave;"  for  men  whose  minds 
are  free  should  find  harmony  in  action.  The  true 
college  spirit  is  the  working  together  of  good  men  for 
good  ends,  for  broad,  fearless,  helpful  life,  arising 
from  sound  impulses  within. 

We  breed  college  spirit  by  the  development  of 
college  men  of  the  broad,  large,  helpful,  hopeful 
type.  To  this  end  we  must  do  away  with  the  dread 
of  ' '  the  rod  behind  the  mirror. ' '  We  must  make 
college  work  not  a  succession  of  pointless  tasks,  but 
every  part  of  it  must  be  made  real,  vital,  —  a  part  of 
life,  "striking  the  heart  of  the  youth  in  flame."  We 
must  offer  as  rewards  not  cheap  toys  and  prizes,  but  in- 
centives which  are  natural  and  enduring.  For  him  who 
works,  large  room  for  work  should  be  opened.  The 
idlers  should  be  taken  to  the  edge  of  the  campus  and 
quietly  dropped  off".  The  privileges  of  the  college  be- 
long to  those  who  can  use  them.  Coworking  comes 
from  working.  Without  habits  of  industry  there  can 
be  no  sound  college  spirit.  Vices  divide  men.  Vir- 
tue brings  them  together.  With  idleness  banished 
from  the  campus,  most  of  the  other  vices  of  academic 
life  would  soon  disappear. 

In  this  matter  false  notions  are  prevalent.      I  have 
226 


COLLEGE    SPIRIT 


heard  college  presidents,  who  have  tried  to  promote 
industry,  accused  of  "breaking  up  college  spirit,"  as 
though  idleness  and  trickery,  in  the  topsy-turvy  col- 
lege world,  had  come  to  stand  among  the  virtues.  To 
make  the  college  a  place  of  serious  work  is  to  prepare 
the  way  for  college  spirit.  It  is  clearing  the  ground 
for  better  crops.  The  true  college  spirit  considers  the 
good  of  the  college,  not  the  pleasure  of  the  individual. 
To  do  one's  level  best  for  the  college  and  for  one's 
fellows,  leaves  no  selfish  residuum.  It  was  a  Prince- 
ton man  who,  when  his  leg  was  broken  in  the  football 
field,  rejoiced  that  it  was  not  one  of  the  first  team 
that  was  hurt.  This  is  a  type  of  the  Princeton  spirit, 
and  it  rises  from  the  football  field  to  make  its  influ- 
ence felt  in  other  things.  It  is  college  spirit  that  leads 
the  player  to  struggle  like  a  bulldog  in  the  game  when 
a  moment's  weakening  would  mean  defeat.  It  is  col- 
lege spirit  of  the  same  sort  which  leads  the  men  to 
cheer  the  good  play  of  their  rix-als.  In  little  things  as 
in  big,  it  is  the  one  who  is  most  courteous  to  his  rivals, 
most  considerate  among  his  equals,  who  will  never  let 
go  when  he  ought  to  hold  on. 

There  are  other  kinds  of  spirit  abroad  in  college 
life  and  some  of  these  the  ignorant  mistake  for  college 
spirit.  I  have  heard  of  spirits  of  mischief,  of  spirits 
that  dance  by  night,  of  spirits  of  rye,  and  spirits  that 
arise  from  a  beer  cask.  There  are  some  who  think 
that  spirits  of  such  sorts  are  all  that  a  college  can  pro- 
duce, and  that  college  spirit  at  the  best  is  but  another 

227 


COLLEGE    SPIRIT 


name  for  deviltry  and  dissipation.  But  the  convivi- 
ality of  the  ' '  beer-bust ' '  or  the  champagne  supper  is 
but  a  spurious  imitation  of  the  good-fellowship  of  sane 
men. 

After  a  great  game  of  football  in  a  large  city,  I 
passed,  one  evening,  by  the  open  door  of  a  fashion- 
able saloon.  It  was  full  of  college  boys,  resplendent 
in  the  green  and  gray  of  their  college,  celebrating  on 
unsteady  legs  their  team's  great  victory.  With  faces 
as  red  as  the  sweaters  of  their  opponents  they  were 
singing  maudlin  college  songs,  full  of  patriotic  liquor. 
They  thought  themselves  possessed  of  college  spirit. 
But  the  passers-by  did  not  look  on  the  scene  in  that 
light.  It  was  clear  to  them  that  certain  college  men 
mistook  drunkenness  for  manliness,  and  after  the 
fashion  of  passers-by,  they  threw  the  whole  blame  on 
the  college.  The  students  of  a  college  fix  its  reputa- 
tion, and  it  may  take  years  of  honest  effort  to  out- 
grow a  single  drunken  escapade. 

I  once  heard  a  graduate  of  the  Boston  Institute  of 
Technology  make  this  plea  to  a  body  of  students  of 
another  institution:  "Never  carry  your  colors  into  a 
saloon.  If  you  must  disgrace  yourself,  do  it  in  the 
name  of  some  one  else.  When  we  visited  a  saloon 
in  Boston,"  he  said,  "we  always  gave  the  Harvard 
yell. ' '  You  may  not  care  for  your  own  disgrace,  but 
do  not  make  your  college  party  to  it.  If  you  must 
visit  saloons  to  express  your  feelings,  do  not  take  your 
college    with    you.      If  you    must   scream,    give    the 

228 


COLLEGE    SPIRIT 


other  fellow's  yell.  Perhaps  if  you  do  this,  sonie 
other  fellow  may  whip  the  breath  out  of  you.  Be  a 
martyr  if  it  must  be,  but  die  rather  than  disgrace  your 
college. 

To  form  a  college  atmosphere,  there  should  be  free 
intercourse  among  students.  The  professional  schools 
of  a  university  may  be  in  a  great  city,  but  a  college 
should  be  in  a  town  so  small  that  college  interests 
overshadow  all  others.  The  college  spirit  burns  dimly 
in  a  great  city.  A  small  town  and  a  large  campus  rep- 
resent the  ideal  condition,  with  a  great  city  not  too  far 
away.  Higher  education  mostly  begins  when  a  boy 
goes  away  from  home.  You  cannot  get  it  on  the  street 
cars.  In  the  German  universities  they  recognize  two 
classes  of  univ^ersity  men,  real  students  and  "spur- 
studenten,"  or  railway-track  students,  those  who  live 
at  home  and  come  and  go  without  becoming  an  actual 
part  of  the  university.  In  a  great  city  all  students  are 
likely  to  be  "  spur-studenten. ' '  Unless  men  can  get 
together,  college  spirit  and  college  atmosphere  are 
well  nigh  impossible.  The  unrest  in  regard  to  the 
four  years'  college  course  in  our  great  urban  universi- 
ties stands  in  evidence  of  this  fact.  The  men  want  to 
get  into  professional  work,  because  the  college  course 
lacks  its  best  element,  the  force  of  comradeship. 

If  our  college  faculties  had  the  academic  courage 
and  academic  patriotism  which  our  people  have  the 
right  to  demand  of  them,  most  of  the  evils  of  college 
life  would  speedily  disappear.     The  worst  training  a 

229 


COLLEGE    SPIRIT 


young  man  can  have  is  that  of  physical  and  intellectual 
idleness.  Free  education  should  be  reserved  for  those 
who  have  the  mind  and  the  will  to  receive  it.  There 
is  no  education  without  effort.  Those  who  do  not 
want  an  education  have  no  place  in  college.  A  firm 
insistence  on  the  demands  of  scholarship  would  do 
away  with  rowdies  and  rowdyism. 

It  is  not  often  the  real  scholar  that  leads  in  rushing 
and  hazing.  The  class  rush  is  a  product  of  sheer 
rowdyism.  It  is  the  work  of  the  college  bullies.  It 
is  dangerous  because  it  has  no  time  limit,  no  rules, 
no  training.  When  a  man  is  hurt  in  its  rough-and- 
tumble  activity,  the  blame  falls  and  rightly  so  on  the 
college. 

Of  the  same  nature  is  hazing,  with  this  difference 
that  hazing  is  essentially  the  coward' s  part.  It  is  half 
a  dozen  against  one,  and  always  involves  infringement 
of  the  rights  and  the  liberties  of  free  men.  Such  affairs 
are  not  indications  of  college  spirit.  They  are  not, 
like  amateur  athletics,  in  aid  of  the  good  name  of  the 
college.  It  does  not  enhance  the  reputation  of  one  of 
our  great  state  universities  that  the  papers  are  full  of 
the  hair-cutting  scrapes  of  her  freshmen  and  sopho- 
mores. It  adds  nothing  to  the  glory  of  another  insti- 
tution of  honored  name  that  her  sophomores  break  up 
the  freshman  dance  by  throwing  skunks  into  the  ball- 
room. It  is  against  the  good  name  of  any  college 
that  sophomore  bullies  carry  away  freshman  class 
presidents  or  lock  up  the  escorts  of  ladies  at  a  junior 

230 


COLLEGE    SPIRIT 


ball.  It  is  not  to  the  credit  of  any  institution  that 
bogus  programs  and  anonymous  insults,  inane  or 
obscene,  are  circulated  on  its  campus.  Stealing  ice- 
cream is  very  much  like  ordinary  stealing,  and  rowdy- 
ism in  all  its  forms  makes  the  development  of  honest 
college  spirit  hopeless.  Comradeship  among  free 
spirits, — what  decent  man  cares  to  be  the  comrade 
of  a  bully? 

It  is  a  weakness  of  our  state  universities  that  their 
students  sometimes  mistake  rowdyism  for  spirit  and 
brutality  for  democracy.  These  institutions  are  thor- 
oughly democratic,  that  is  a  matter  of  course,  but  we 
must  not  forget  that  democracy  is  not  inconsistent 
with  courtesy.  Other  things  being  equal,  the  better 
the  manners,  the  better  the  man.  The  same  spirit 
that  leads  to  rowdyism  in  a  state  institution  reappears 
as  imbecility  in  some  other  kinds  of  colleges.  There 
is  little  choice  between  the  two.  It  is  lack  of  inventive 
power  that  leads  the  midnight  student  to  take  the 
president's  carriage  to  pieces,  to  put  his  cow  into  the 
bell-tower  or  to  stack  up  the  gates  of  the  town  in  his 
back  yard.  It  is  imbecility  that  leads  college  men  to 
assert  their  own  independence  by  discourtesy  to  col- 
lege women.  It  is  imbecility  that  causes  college 
boys  to  take  up  one  after  another  a  series  of  unpleas- 
ant fads,  the  fad  of  swiping  signs,  of  stealing  spoons, 
of  running  away  with  some  one's  bric-a-brac. 

Another  peculiarly  disagreeable  fad,  caught  from 
the  street  gamin,  is  seen  or  heard  at  some  of  our  ath- 


COLLEGE    SPIRIT 


letic  games.  The  mob  at  a  ball  game  tries  to  rattle 
the  pitcher,  to  confuse  the  catcher,  or  to  so  crowd 
about  that  an  opposing  team  has  not  only  the  local 
team  to  meet,  but  the  whole  student  body  as  well.  It 
is  not  genuine  college  spirit  that  has  turned  many  a 
football  game  in  the  Middle  West  into  something  very 
much  like  a  riot.  The  institution  that  permits  this 
sort  of  thing  consents  to  its  own  disgrace.  It  is  upon 
the  apathy  of  college  faculties  that  the  blame  must 
finally  rest.  It  is  for  such  performances  as  these 
that  aristocratic  Harvard  has  invented  the  term  of 
"mucker."  Whatever  else  Harvard  may  be,  she  is 
*"' anti-mucker"  through  and  through.  The  move- 
ment toward  athletic  courtesy  perhaps  had  its  origin 
in  Harvard,  and  I  hope  for  the  spread  of  its  influence. 
When  a  Yale  batter  strikes  a  foul  and  returns  to  his 
base,  he  finds  the  Harvard  catcher  handing  him  his 
bat.  That  a  man  may  play  a  strenuous  game,  the 
fiercest  ever  seen  on  the  gridiron,  and  yet  keep  the 
speech  and  the  manners  of  a  gentleman,  is  one  of  the 
lessons  Harvard  may  teach  us,  and  we  of  the  West 
cannot  listen  to  any  better  lesson  in  college  spirit. 

Our  student  bodies  as  well  as  our  college  faculties 
have  been  too  tolerant  of  petty  trickery.  This  is 
shown  in  student  elections,  which  would  often  give 
points  to  the  most  corrupt  of  city  governments.  The 
man  of  college  spirit  will  vote  for  the  best  representa- 
tive of  the  college.  The  vulgar  college  politician  sees 
only  the  chance  of  combination.      Many  men  will  even 


COLLEGE    SPIRIT 


prostitute  their  fraternity  relations  by  making  that 
association  a  mere  means  of  poHtical  influence.  Presi- 
dent White  used  to  call  "college  politics  a  pewter  im- 
itation of  a  pinchbeck  original."  I  have  never  known 
a  successful  politician  of  the  "win  at  any  cost"  sort 
who  became  a  useful  man  in  after-life.  I  have  known 
some  who  have  risen  in  politics — risen  for  a  while 
until  they  have  been  found  out.  As  grown  men  they 
have  disgraced  the  state,  just  as,  when  boys,  they 
brought  their  college  into  ill-repute.  Cheating  in 
examinations  is  of  a  piece  with  cheating  in  politics. 
A  sound  college  spirit  finds  no  place  for  such  things. 
The  same  evil  spirit  which  at  times  controls  stu- 
dent elections  often  works  havoc  with  the  usefulness 
of  athletics.  I  believe  thoroughly  in  college  athletics. 
I  ha\'e  taken  my  part  in  them  in  college  and  out,  and 
I  know  that  other  things  being  equal,  the  athletic  man 
is  worth  more  to  the  community  than  other  kinds  of 
men.  But  other  things  may  not  be  equal.  The  ath- 
letic tramp  should  receive  no  academic  welcome.  The 
athletic  parasite  is  no  better  than  any  other  parasite. 
The  man  who  is  in  college  for  athletics  alone,  disgraces 
the  college,  degrades  athletics  and  shuts  out  a  better 
man  from  his  place  on  the  team.  In  tolerating  the 
presence  of  athletes  who  do  not  study,  the  college 
faculty  becomes  party  to  a  fraud.  Some  of  our  great- 
est institutions  stand  disgraced  in  the  eyes  of  the  col- 
lege world,  by  reason  of  the  methods  employed  to 
w^in  football  victories. 

-33 


COLLEGE    SPIRIT 


At  the  best,  athletics  is  a  by-play  in  the  business 
of  education,  most  useful  in  their  place,  but  most 
damaging  if  it  breaks  down  academic  standards.  To 
relieve  football  men  from  all  necessity  of  scholar- 
ship during  the  football  period  is  to  strike  a  blow  at  the 
dignity  and  honesty  of  the  college.  More  than  one 
institution  is  doing  this  at  the  present  time.  The  col- 
lege that  does  its  duty  to  its  students  is  the  one  in 
which  the  football  tramp,  the  professional  athlete, 
finds  no  place.  Nothing  I  have  seen  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  Missouri  has  pleased  me  more  than  the  firm 
stand  it  has  taken  for  decency  in  athletics,  and  that 
too  when  the  traditions  of  fraud,  the  impulse  to  win  at 
any  cost,  were  at  their  very  strongest. 

On  the  girls  as  well  as  on  the  boys  falls  the  duty  of 
maintaining  college  spirit.  To  create  the  sense  of 
manly  dignity  is  largely  woman's  work.  To  be 
drawn  into  college  combinations  and  voted  like  lambs 
at  the  will  of  some  shrewd  manipulator  has  been  too 
often  women's  experience  in  college  politics.  Young 
women,  think  for  yourselves.  Don't  ask  the  politi- 
cians how  the  candidates  stand.  You  can  get  better 
information  from  the  registrar.  Don't  behave  as  if 
you  needed  a  guardian.  Don't  carry  your  social 
affairs  into  the  recitation  rooms.  Let  society  have  its 
place  and  time,  but  do  not  mix  its  demands  with  those 
of  study.  If  there  are  too  many  balls  in  college 
society  and  they  last  too  long,  have  the  courage  to 
refuse  to  go,  the  courage  to  refuse  to  stay  after  it  is 

234 


COLLEGE    SPIRIT 


time  for  sleep.  If  dances  run  on  without  time  limit, 
as  they  do  in  some  places,  it  is  your  duty  to  make 
your  own  limit,  before  the  faculty  awakes  to  its  re- 
sponsibility and  lays  down  your  duty  for  you.  Do 
not  be  put  into  false  positions.  Young  men  value 
young  women  more  when  their  society  is  not  to  be 
had  too  easily.  I  heard  the  other  day  these  words 
uttered  by  a  student,  and  they  were  words  of  wisdom : 
"  When  a  girl's  name  is  bandied  about  the  campus,  it 
is  a  hard  proposition  for  her  to  Hve  it  down." 

The  future  of  co-education  rests  with  the  young 
women  and  with  them  alone.  If  they  are  worthy  of 
their  opportunity,  as  the  vast  majority  are,  the  cavil- 
ing of  provincial  ignorance  will  not  harm  them.  The 
reputation  of  the  college  is  made  by  its  students, 
women  as  well  as  men,  and  on  the  women  rests  a 
large  responsibility  for  the  growth  of  a  healthy  college 
spirit. 

The  process  of  "knocking"  is  opposed  to  the 
growth  of  college  spirit.  There  is  no  use  in  com- 
plaining for  complaint's  sake.  If  you  don't  like 
things  as  they  are,  turn  in  and  make  them  better,  or 
go  somewhere  else.  If  the  habit  of  faultfinding  is 
deep-seated,  learn  your  college  song.  Practice  at 
nights  upon  your  college  yell.  It  will  do  you  good. 
There  is  a  great  moral  lesson  in  learning  to  shout  in 
unison.  To  ' '  root ' '  in  perfect  time  at  the  call  of  the 
yell-leader  is  a  college  education  in  itself.  To  keep  in 
touch  with  men  is  the  best  antidote  for  cynicism. 

235 


COLLEGE    SPIRIT 


Snobbishness  is  opposed  to  college  spirit.  It  is 
not  a  fault  of  the  West,  where  few  students  are  reared 
on  Mellin'  s  food  and  finished  on  champagne.  We  have 
few  young  men  who  tread  on  velvet  and  take  a  col- 
lege course  by  proxy.  The  Harvard  man  who  keeps 
a  groom  for  his  horse,  a  groom  for  himself,  and  a 
groom  for  each  of  his  studies,  has  few  imitators  in  the 
West.  In  the  strenuous,  rugged  West,  there  is  little 
room  for  the  ' '  Laodicean  club, ' '  the  association  of 
those  who  are  neither  hot  nor  cold,  but  altogether 
luke-warm. 

But  if  we  lack  the  perfect  aristocrat,  we  have  in 
the  West  our  own  cliques  and  divisions.  The  frater- 
nity system  at  its  best  is  an  aid  to  scholarship,  to 
manners  and  to  character;  at  its  worst,  it  is  a  basis  for 
vulgar  dissension.  The  influence  of  a  fraternity  de- 
pends on  the  men  who  are  in  it.  If  these  are  above 
the  average  in  character  and  work,  it  is  lucky  for  the 
average  man  to  be  chosen  into  it.  If  they  are  below 
the  average  in  this  regard,  the  average  man  loses  by 
joining  his  fortunes  with  it.  When  fraternities  are 
sources  of  disorganization,  there  is  something  wrong 
in  them  or  in  the  institution. 

The  evil  of  dissipation  exists  in  college  as  outside 
of  it.  The  average  boy,  or  rather  the  boy  a  little 
below  the  average,  believes  that  some  degree  of  man- 
liness inheres  in  getting  drunk.  Bismarck  is  reputed 
to  have  said  that  in  the  universities  of  Germany  "one- 
third  the  students  work  themselves  to  death,  one-third 

236 


COLLEGE    SPIRIT 


drink  themselves  to  death,  and  the  other  third  govern 
Europe. ' '  Something  like  this  takes  place  in  Amer- 
ica, though  the  percentage  of  those  who  die  of  drink 
is  less  and  the  percentage  of  those  who  die  of  hard 
work  is  still  lower.  But  too  many  of  our  college  stu- 
dents have  wrecked  their  lives  even  before  they  have 
realized  the  strength  and  the  duties  of  manhood. 

The  finest  piece  of  mechanism  in  all  the  universe 
is  the  brain  of  man.  In  this  complex  structure,  with 
its  millions  of  connecting  cells,  we  can  form  images 
of  the  world  about  us,  correct  so  far  as  they  go.  To 
retain  these  images,  to  compare  them,  to  infer  rela- 
tions of  cause  and  effect  and  to  transfer  thought  into 
action  is  man's  pri\ilege.  In  proportion  to  the  exact- 
ness of  these  operations  is  the  soundness,  the  value  of 
the  man.  The  wise  man  protects  his  brain,  and  the 
mind,  which  is  its  manipulator,  from  all  that  would  do 
harm.  Vice  is  our  name  for  self-inflicted  injury, 
and  every  stimulant  or  narcotic  —  every  drug  that 
lea\'es  its  mark  of  weakness  on  the  brain,  is  the  begin- 
ning of  vice.  Vice  means  brain  decay.  "  Death  is  a 
thing  cleaner  than  vice,"  and  in  the  long  run  it  is 
more  profitable.  False  ideas  of  manliness,  false  con- 
ceptions of  good-fellowship,  wreck  many  a  young  man 
of  otherwise  good  intentions.  The  sinner  is  the  man 
who  cannot  say  no. 

The  young  man's  first  duty  is  toward  his  after- 
self.  So  live  that  your  after-self,  the  man  you  ought 
to  be,  may  be  possible  and  actual.      Far  away  in  the 

^37 


COLLEGE    SPIRIT 


twenties,  the  thirties  of  our  century,  he  is  awaiting  his 
time.  His  body,  his  brain,  his  soul  are  in  your  boy- 
ish hands  today.  He  cannot  help  himself.  Will  you 
hand  over  to  him  a  brain  unspoiled  by  lust  or  dissipa- 
tion, a  mind  trained  to  think  and  act,  a  ner\'ous  sys- 
tem true  as  a  dial  in  its  response  to  environment? 
Will  you,  college  boy  of  the  twentieth  century,  let 
him  come  in  his  time  as  a  man  among  men?  Or  will 
you  throw  away  his  patrimony  ?  Will  you  turn  over 
to  him  a  brain  distorted,  a  mind  diseased,  a  will  un- 
trained to  action,  a  spinal  cord  grown  through  and 
through  with  the  vile  harvest  we  call  ' '  wild  oats ' '  ? 
Will  you  let  him  come,  taking  your  place,  gaining 
through  your  experiences,  your  joys,  building  on 
them  as  his  own?  Or  will  you  wantonly  fling  it  all 
away,  careless  that  the  man  you  might  have  been 
shall  never  be  ? 

In  all  our  colleges  we  are  taught  that  the  athlete 
must  not  break  training  rules.  The  pitcher  who 
smokes  a  cigarette  gives  away  the  game.  The  punter 
who  dances  loses  the  goal,  the  sprinter  who  takes  a 
convivial  glass  of  beer  breaks  no  record.  His  record 
breaks  him.  Some  day  we  shall  realize  that  the  game 
of  life  is  more  strenuous  than  the  game  of  football, 
more  intricate  than  pitching  curves,  more  difficult  than 
punting  We  should  keep  in  trim  for  it.  We  must 
remember  training  rules.  The  rules  that  win  the 
football  game  are  good  also  for  success  in  business. 
Half  the  strength  of  young  America  is  wasted  in  the 

238 


COLLEGE    SPIRIT 


dissipation  of  drinking  or  smoking.  If  we  keep  the 
training  rules  of  life  in  literal  honesty,  we  shall  win  a 
host  of  prizes  that  otherwise  we  should  lose.  Final 
success  goes  to  the  few,  the  very  few,  alas,  who 
throughout  life  keep  mind  and  soul  and  body  clean. 

" Gemeingeist  unter  freien  Geistern,"  the  "com- 
radeship of  free  souls," — this  is  the  meaning  of  true 
college  spirit.  Freedom  of  the  soul  means  freedom 
of  the  mind,  freedom  of  the  brain.  It  is  said  in  the 
litany  that  His  " ser\ace  is  perfect  freedom."  Igno- 
rance holds  men  in  bondage;  so  do  selfishness,  stu- 
pidity and  vice.  The  service  of  God  and  of  man  is 
found  in  casting  off  these  things.  In  freedom  we 
find  abundance  of  life.  The  scholar  should  be  a  man 
in  the  full  life  of  the  world.  "The  color  of  life  is 
red, ' '  and  the  scholar  of  today  is  no  longer  a  dim- 
eyed  monk  with  a  grammarian's  cough.  He  is  a 
worker  in  the  rush  of  the  century  —  a  lover  of  nature 
and  an  artist  in  building  the  lives  of  men. 


239 


XIII. 

POLITICS    IN   THE    SCHOOLS. 

THE  conspicuous  failure  of  democracy  in  the 
United  States  has  been  in  its  inabihty  to 
conduct  local  business  on  business  prin- 
ciples. In  the  government  of  Great  Britain 
just  the  reverse  has  been  true.  In  the  management 
of  local  and  municipal  matters  the  people  of  England 
have  been  most  signally  successful.  It  is  in  this  part 
of  the  British  government  that  government  by  the 
people  and  for  the  people  has  had  fullest  play.  With- 
out going  into  details  as  to  the  failure  of  county  and 
of  city  government  in  America,  we  may  accept  a  classi- 
fication of  the  causes  of  such  failure  as  lately  given  by 
Dr.  Walter  F.  Willcox  of  Cornell. 

' '  There  are, ' '  says  Dr.  Willcox,  ' '  three  fundamen- 
tal evils  in  the  government  of  our  cities.  The  first  is 
economic  and  consists  in  the  waste  of  public  funds.  The 
second  is  political  in  the  true  sense  and  consists  in  the 
inadequacy  of  municipal  service.  The  third  is  moral 
and  consists  in  the  corruption  of  civic  authority  for  the 
furtherance  of  individual  ends.  The  chief  importance  of 
this  third  evil  is  that  it  throws  politics  into  disrepute  and 
degrades  civic  ideals,  thus  rendering  cooperation  for  the 
attainment  of  truly  political  ends  well  nigh  impossible." 

240 


POLITICS    IN    THE    SCHOOLS 

To  this  analysis  of  sources  of  evil,  which  exist  in 
all  countries  and  under  all  forms  of  government,  we 
may  add  three  others,  which  are  more  or  less  peculiar 
to  America  and  scarcely  less  baneful  in  their  influence. 
These  are,  the  influence  of  private  control  of  public 
functions,  the  federal  organization  of  the  city,  and  the 
lack  of  serious  interest  on  the  part  of  our  people.  As 
to  the  first  of  these,  the  use  of  public  franchises  by 
individuals  and  corporations  and  their  corrupt  con- 
trol of  the  ofiicers  of  city  and  state  are  already  the 
basis  of  a  vast  amount  of  discussion.  Its  natural 
remedy  is  the  public  performance  of  public  functions, 
a  system  which  has  also  its  dangers  and  difficulties, 
which  it  is  not  my  purpose  now  to  consider. 

In  the  next  place,  we  have  been  misled  by  false 
analogies  in  forming  our  municipal  charters.  We 
treat  our  cities  as  if  each  was  a  confederation  of  wards 
and  precincts  in  the  same  way  that  the  United  States 
is  a  confederation  of  self-ruHng  communities.  This  is 
not  true  in  fact  and  therefore  works  badly  in  practice. 
The  city  is  not  a  confederation  of  wards.  It  is  an 
association  of  men,  and  it  is  citizens  and  not  wards 
that  should  be  represented  in  its  councils.  The  prin- 
ciple of  proportional  representation  is  therefore  essen- 
tial to  its  government  by  the  people.  Let  the  citizens 
choose  as  their  representatives  those  men  who  repre- 
sent them  best  regardless  of  all  questions  of  what 
street  they  live  on  or  in  what  quarter  they  do  their 
business.    The  municipality  exists  for  the  mutual  bene- 

241 


POLITICS    IN    THE    SCHOOLS 

fit  and  the  mutual  protection  of  its  citizens.  It  is 
not  a  creation  of  the  separate  wards  and  precincts 
into  which,  for  purposes  of  voting,  the  town  may  be 
divided.  To  the  persistence  of  the  ward  system,  to 
the  use  of  the  machinery  of  the  federal  United  States 
where  federation  does  not  exist,  the  failure  of  our  city 
charters  is  in  great  part  due. 

A  further  source  of  inefficiency  in  local  govern- 
ment lies  in  the  fact  that  we  have  never  yet  taken  it 
seriously.  As  a  people  we  have  a  fine  sense  of  humor 
and  it  is  exercised  impartially  in  all  directions.  A 
piece  of  gross  corruption  or  inefficiency  serves  as  the 
point  of  a  joke.  It  ends  with  a  newspaper  cartoon. 
And  as  a  cartoon  may  be  as  unjust  as  any  other  form 
of  criticism,  it  fails  to  be  taken  in  evidence  by  the 
people.  An  administrative  blunder  or  crime  has  no 
adequate  punishment.  We  never  know  the  real  facts 
in  the  case  and  in  the  hopelessly  good  nature  of  the 
American  people,  whether  it  has  taken  place  or  not, 
it  is  equally  and  speedily  forgiven.  From  this  lack 
of  seriousness  as  to  local  matters  which  we  can  con- 
trol, coupled  with  our  universal  interest  in  national 
affairs  on  which  even  a  whole  state  exerts  but  a  trifling 
influence,  arises  the  subordination  of  local  issues  to 
those  which  divide  our  two  great  political  parties. 
This  subordination  of  local  to  national  affairs  is  a 
great  source  of  weakness  and  corruption.  The  plea 
that  bad  men  must  be  chosen  at  home  for  the  sake  of 
the  party  at  large  is  heard  at  every  election  and  it  is 

242 


POLITICS    IN    THE    SCHOOLS 

always  false  and  degrading.  It  is  said  that  the  only 
' '  straight  ticket ' '  a  good  citizen  has  the  right  to  vote 
is  the  "one  with  the  crooked  names  scratched  off 
it."  If  this  rule  were  followed  by  all  that  think 
themselves  good  citizens,  the  record  of  city  govern- 
ment would  be  very  different  from  what  it  is  now. 

But  my  purpose  at  this  time  is  not  to  consider  the 
general  failure  of  city  administration  but  its  particular 
failure  in  the  matter  of  public  schools.  Thus  far  most 
of  our  cities  have  failed  to  give  the  people  the  school 
system  which  they  pay  for,  the  one  which  they  deserve, 
and  which  is  essential  to  the  best  development  of  their 
children. 

This  failure  falls  under  the  second  of  Dr.  Will- 
cox's  classes:  "The  inadequacy  of  municipal  ser- 
vice." But  the  cause  of  the  failure  lies  mostly  with 
the  third  class  of  evils:  "The  corruption  of  civic 
authority  for  the  furtherance  of  individual  ends," 
In  other  words,  the  school  service  in  most  of  our 
cities  is  very  bad  and  it  is  bad  because  the  schools  are 
tampered  with  and  used  as  tools  to  enrich  or  advance 
those  persons  who  have  them  in  charge.  This  is  what 
is  meant  by  the  common  phrase:  "Our  schools  are 
poor  because  they  are  in  politics. ' ' 

The  necessity  of  schools  is  unquestioned  and  our 
people  from  the  first  have  met  this  need  by  coopera- 
tive action.  This  results  in  free  public  schools,  open 
to  all,  and  under  the  domination  of  no  religious  sect 
and  no  political  party.     With  some  minor  differences 

243 


POLITICS    IN    THE    SCHOOLS 

of  opinion,  our  people  are  all  practically  agreed  on 
this.  Our  schools  from  the  kindergarten  to  the  uni- 
versity must  be  free,  public,  and  uncontrolled  by  sect 
or  party.  On  no  other  principle  of  government  is 
there  such  perfect  harmony.  Because  we  make  our 
schools  public  and  free  their  administration  becomes 
an  affair  of  government.  Our  government  is  always 
just  as  good  as  the  people  demand  and  never  any 
better.  It  must  be  the  same  with  our  schools.  When 
general  politics  are  corrupt  good  public  schools  are 
impossible. 

Three  elements  are  necessary  in  the  administration 
of  public  schools.  First,  the  presence  of  a  board  of 
control,  representing  the  people,  attending  to  the 
finances  of  the  school  and  giving  to  the  promotion  of 
its  interests  a  degree  of  time  and  attention  which  the 
body  of  the  people  could  not  give.  This  we  call  the 
Board  of  Trustees.  Second,  an  educational  expert 
who  shall  know  schools  on  the  one  hand,  and  teachers 
on  the  other,  who  shall  know  educational  aims  and 
ideals,  their  relative  place  and  value  and  the  means  by 
which  they  may  be  carried  out.  Such  ends  cannot  be 
served  by  the  governing  board  because  success  de- 
mands that  this  work  be  a  life  study,  a  profession,  and 
professional  knowledge  and  training  cannot  be  acquired 
by  men  engaged  in  matters  outside  the  schools.  Such 
an  educational  manager  we  term  the  superintendent 
of  schools.  The  third  element  is  that  of  tramed  and 
competent  teachers.    To  know  these  teachers  and  how 

244 


POLITICS    IN    THE    SCHOOLS 

to  secure  them  is  of  itself  a  life  profession.  Schools 
do  not  build  themselves  up  without  intelligence  and 
effort,  and  to  bring  good  teachers  together,  each  in 
his  proper  place,  is  the  highest  educational  art. 

While  this  art  is  frequently  realized  in  our  city 
schools,  it  is  the  exception  rather  than  the  rule.  In 
most  of  our  cities  the  schools  are  very  inferior  in 
character  and  influence  to  what  they  might  or  should 
be.  They  are  often  not  as  good  as  the  private  schools 
they  have  displaced  and  not  as  good  proportionally  as 
the  ungraded  district  schools  of  the  country.  Such 
failure,  wherever  it  occurs,  is  traceable  to  one  cause, 
the  presence  of  incompetent  teachers,  through  failure 
of  the  appointing  power  which  is  itself  oppressed  or 
superseded  by  the  pressure  of  personal  influence.  In 
other  words,  what  ails  our  schools  is  the  meddling  of 
outside  interests.  This  begins  with  the  school  board ; 
its  evils  appear  in  the  bad  choice  of  teachers,  and  it  is 
the  children,  for  whom  alone  the  schools  exist,  who 
finally  suffer. 

The  school  board  is  supposed  to  be  made  up  of 
men  of  wisdom,  discretion  and  public  spirit,  who  rep- 
resent the  interests  of  the  people  at  large  and  to  whom 
the  management  of  the  schools  can  be  safely  entrusted. 
It  is  the  first  duty  of  these  men  to  associate  with  them- 
selves an  expert  in  education,  a  superintendent  of 
schools,  a  man  competent  to  choose,  control  and  dis- 
miss individual  teachers,  one  who  has  executive  ability, 
by  which  term  is  meant  the  power  of  working  out  a 

245 


POLITICS    IN    THE    SCHOOLS 

policy  through  the  agency  of  other  men  or  women. 
When  these  relations  are  normal  we  always  have  good 
schools.  The  bad  schools  exist  where  the  school 
board  wantonly  betrays  the  trust  of  the  people  or 
when  its  members  are  too  ignorant  to  perform  the 
functions  assigned  to  them.  Schools  are  bad  only 
when  they  are  in  the  hands  of  bad  teachers,  teachers 
ignorant,  indifferent  or  corrupt.  Bad  teachers  are 
chosen  mainly  by  bad  men,  men  who  are  ignorant, 
indifferent  or  corrupt.  Such  choice  may  happen  under 
a  good  board  which  has  made  an  unfortunate  choice 
of  superintendent.  But  this  does  not  often  take 
place,  nor  will  its  consequences  last  very  long,  for  a 
good  board  seldom  repeats  its  mistakes.  Sometimes 
bad  appointments  are  made  knowingly  by  a  good  su- 
perintendent, placed  in  a  position  where  he  thinks  that 
he  cannot  help  himself.  But  this  condition  again 
rarely  lasts  long,  for  the  good  superintendent  forced 
to  do  wrong  either  saves  his  honor  by  resigning  or 
saves  his  position  by  ceasing  to  be  good. 

We  may  classify  the  motives  which  lead  school 
boards  to  choose  incompetent  teachers  under  three 
heads,  party  spoils,  political  perquisites,  and  personal 
spoils. 

When  a  city  election  is  carried  it  sometimes  hap- 
pens that  teachers  do  active  service  for  the  party. 
Among  those  who  have  profited  by  these  efforts  may 
be  the  school  board  itself,  elected  as  partisans  and 
chosen  from  the  list  of  minor  political  heelers  by  our 

246 


POLITICS    IN    THE    SCHOOLS 

vicious  ward  system.  The  higher  prizes  are  reserved 
for  those  who  make  politics  a  business,  but  to  the 
teacher-politicians  the  party  managers  can  offer  places 
in  the  schools.  The  political  bosses  of  one  party  or 
another  order  this,  and  the  school  board,  their  crea- 
tures, simply  register  their  decree.  Coarse  and  un- 
democratic as  this  procedure  is,  there  are  many 
teachers  in  our  state  who  strain  every  nerve  to  be- 
come its  beneficiaries. 

Political  perquisites  occur  when  the  school  board 
or  its  leaders  are  strong  enough  to  repay  by  their 
patronage  those  who  have  worked  directly  in  their 
interest.  Thus  a  teacher  who  has  worked  success- 
fully for  the  election  of  a  member  of  the  board  from 
his  ward  may  reasonably  look  to  being  advanced 
to  a  principalship.  In  such  case,  by  an  agreement 
among  themselves,  the  representatives  of  the  domi- 
nant party  in  each  ward  may  take  care  of  his  own. 
They  divide  up  the  places  among  themselves  and  for 
each  appointment  made  some  particular  member  and 
not  the  whole  board  is  responsible.  Usually  there  are 
places  enough  to  meet  the  needs  of  personal  perqui- 
sites as  well  as  those  of  party  spoils.  Which  demand 
is  attended  to  first  depends  upon  the  relative  rank  and 
greediness  of  the  bosses,  big  and  little. 

Both  these  forms  of  corruption  are  due  to  party 
fealty  and  hence  have  to  some  degree  a  public  rela- 
tion. They  may  not  even  prevent  the  choice  in  many 
cases  of  teachers  of  real  efficiency  because  some  mem- 
247 


POLITICS    IN    THE    SCHOOLS 

bers  of  the  board  are  all  the  more  conscientious,  since 
they  do  not  share  their  individual  responsibility. 

The  third  class  is  that  of  personal  spoils.  It  some- 
times happens  that  members  of  school  boards  look 
upon  their  relation  to  the  schools  as  purely  personal, 
rather  than  political.  They  have  been  chosen  to  this 
position  to  repay  them  for  their  own  work  for  some 
candidate  or  party  and  this  is  the  chance  offered  to 
get  their  money  back.  They  are  not  in  politics  for 
their  health  nor  for  glory  nor  for  praise.  They  look 
only  to  what  there  is  in  it  for  them.  Boards  of  this 
sort  are  constantly  beset  with  financial  scandals.  Every 
purchase  of  school  furniture,  every  adoption  of  school 
text-books  involves  a  ' '  rake-off' '  for  somebody  and 
every  rake-off  gives  a  chance  for  a  quarrel  over  the 
plunder,  and,  perhaps,  for  an  exposure.  The  percent- 
age must  be  big  enough  to  justify  them  m  running 
the  risks.  Such  a  board  can  be  depended  on  to  do 
the  worst  the  law  will  let  them,  taking  their  chances 
of  impeachment  or  the  penitentiary.  But  even  of  this 
they  have  no  great  fear,  for  their  election  or  appoint- 
ment indicates  the  presence  of  a  "  friend  at  court. ' ' 

A  board  composed  mainly  of  spoilsmen  first 
organizes  a  mutual  society  or  trust  by  which  the 
spoilsmen  stand  for  each  other's  interests,  shutting 
out  the  others  from  all  responsibility  for  action,  and  all 
divisions  of  the  spoils.  Such  a  trust  is  known  as  the 
Solid  Ten,  or  a  Solid  Eight  or  a  Big  Four  or  some 
other  number,  and  this  combination  will   take  what  it 

248 


POLITICS      IN    THE    SCHOOLS 

can  get,  permitting  no  nonsense.  If  the  board  elects 
the  superintendent,  as  it  should  under  normal  condi- 
tions, this  official  becomes  a  tool  of  this  solid  combi- 
nation and  meekly  carries  out  the  orders  they  may 
give  him.  If  the  superintendent  is  chosen  directly  by 
the  people,  as  in  some  cities,  he  finds  himself  in  con- 
stant friction  with  his  board.  The  board  snubs  him 
and  ignores  his  plans  and  purposes,  while  for  his  part 
he  may  try  to  do  the  best  he  can  in  a  condition  where 
success  is  impossible.  Still  some  good  men  who  be- 
lieved that  ' '  a  public  office  is  a  public  trust ' '  have 
served  our  cities  well  even  under  the  most  trying  con- 
ditions. Usually  the  Solid  Eight  divide  the  minor 
places  among  their  own  number,  giving  each  member 
as  many  places  to  fill  as  he  sees  fit.  This  action  is  of 
the  same  moral  grade  as  the  embezzlement  of  public 
funds  and  its  results  are  equtilly  disastrous. 

The  statutes  of  the  states  require  that  each  teacher 
should  know  a  little  something  of  various  matters 
before  receiving  a  license  to  teach.  This  minimum  of 
knowledge  and  training  must  be  met  by  every  teacher 
who  receives  an  appointment.  Those  teachers  who 
stand  at  the  bottom  of  the  teaching  profession,  the 
least  exacting  of  all  professions,  struggle  for  this  min- 
imum, and  once  attaining  it,  regard  an  appointment  as 
a  favor,  a  piece  of  luck,  and  once  on  the  pay-roll  they 
have  no  further  interest  in  professional  advancement. 
The  better  class  of  teachers  are  in  demand  in  better 
schools,  where  the  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire.    They 

249 


POLITICS    IN    THE    SCHOOLS 

are  not  "hunting  a  job,"  nor  are  they  ready  to  go 
out  of  their  way  to  secure  one.  Hence  the  appli- 
cants with  which  mercenary  boards  have  to  deal 
belong  mainly  to  the  lowest  class  of  teachers,  those 
without  professional  interest,  or  child  knowledge; 
without  character  or  determination,  persons  wishing 
to  get  money  with  the  least  possible  expenditure  of 
effort.  With  such  candidates  individual  members  of 
boards  have  been  known  to  do  several  things.  Among 
these  are  (a)  selling  places  outright,  (b)  putting  in 
their  own  relatives,  (c)  trading  them  with  other  per- 
sons for  personal  favors,  (d)  paying  debts  of  various 
sorts,  sometimes  those  made  most  corruptly,  (e)  put- 
ting in  their  own  dependents  or  those  of  others,  (  f ) 
using  them  for  purposes  of  charity. 

The  motive  in  each  of  these  cases  may  be  different. 
The  effect  on  the  schools  is  alike  evil.  The  children, 
under  the  influence  of  spoilsmen  and  spoilswomen, 
each  day  receive  a  dose  of  poison,  of  political  corrup- 
tion. Competent,  capable,  self-respecting  men  and 
women  will  not  take  schools  under  any  of  these  con- 
ditions. Good  schools  cannot  be  made  except  by 
such  men  and  women.  Of  all  these  conditions,  the 
one  which  makes  the  teacher  an  object  of  charity  is 
perhaps  the  most  mischievous.  A  good  school  can- 
not be  a  hospital  for  its  teachers. 

The  various  forms  of  school  corruption  have  a 
variety  of  evil  results.  These  we  may  analyze  as  fol- 
lows : 

250 


POLITICS    IN    THE    SCHOOLS 

1.  They  injure  the  schools  by  making  good  work 
impossible. 

2.  They  exclude  good  teachers. 

3.  They  exclude  those  who  strive  to  rise  in  the 
profession  by  honorable  means. 

4.  They  render  places  in  the  schools  unstable. 
This  evil  has  been  remedied  by  a  statute  prohibiting 
removals  except  by  a  formal  trial.  This  is  an  evil 
greater  than  instability  as  it  tends  to  perpetuate  the 
results  of  corruption.  There  are  cities  in  which  a 
statute  against  removal  has  led  corrupt  boards  to  enor- 
mously multiply  the  number  of  useless  teachers  by 
adding  its  own  complement  to  those  of  its  predeces- 
sors, thus  greatly  increasing  the  cost  of  the  schools 
without  good  service.  Where  the  spoils  system  ob- 
tains, rotation  in  office  does  no  additional  harm. 
Where  good  schools  are  desired  the  power  of  free 
removal  is  scarcely  less  important  than  the  power  of 
appointment.  Competent  superintendents  will  not 
abuse  this  power.  Good  managers  do  not  make 
charges  wantonly. 

5.  Corrupt  conditions  keep  the  best  men  out  of 
public  school  work.  In  general,  a  competent  man 
will  accept  a  college  position  at  a  far  lower  salary  than 
he  would  demand  in  public  school  work.  Graduate 
students  in  universities  will  choose  a  laboratory  posi- 
tion at  $600  to  $1,000  in  preference  to  a  high  school 
instructorship  at  $1,500  to  $2,000,  or  a  superintend- 
ency  at  $2,000  to  $2,500.     The  university  offers  high 

251 


POLITICS    IN    THE    SCHOOLS 

incentives,  freedom  from  intrigue,  and  final  reward  for 
superior  service.  The  public  schools  cannot  guaran- 
tee anything.  To  be  dismissed  from  any  position  in 
some  of  our  cities  involves  no  professional  discredit, 
not  even  the  need  of  explanation.  The  one  thing  to 
be  explained  is  the  inducement  which  led  the  teacher 
to  accept  such  a  position. 

The  conditions  described  prevent  cities  from  se- 
curing outside  talent.  In  some  great  cities  where  the 
spoils  system  has  been  unchecked,  no  competent  out- 
side teacher  would  ever  think  of  applying  for  a  posi- 
tion. The  superintendent  never  thinks  of  looking 
outside  for  a  teacher.  A  great  city  should  be  ever  on 
the  watch  for  the  best  talent  in  the  region  tributary  to 
it.  The  city  of  San  Francisco,  for  example,  should 
be  alert  to  bring  in  the  best  teachers  of  the  coast  to 
handle  the  work  in  its  high  schools  and  grammar 
schools.  I  have  heard  (1899)  of  but  one  case  of  its 
drawing  a  teacher  from  any  other  city  or  even  of  any 
attempt  to  do  so.  The  principle  of  keeping  "our  own 
schools  for  our  own  girls, ' '  wherever  accepted,  works 
badly  for  the  schools.  It  is  a  species  of  educational 
corruption.  In  some  cases  a  local  department  called  a 
' '  normal ' '  has  been  established  so  that  ' '  the  girls  who 
have  to  teach"  will  not  need  to  go  away  from  home 
for  their  training.  But  to  go  away  from  home  is  a 
necessary  part  of  the  teacher's  training  if  teaching  is 
to  be  in  any  degree  a  profession.  The  schools  need 
.new  blood.     The  teacher   needs  new  outlooks.      In  a 

252 


POLITICS     IN     THE     SCHOOLS 

well-managed  system  no  teacher  will  be  appointed 
who  has  not  had,  as  a  teacher  or  as  a  student,  some 
experience  somewhere  else. 

If  teachers  push  themselves  upward  through  un- 
professional means,  teaching  cannot  be  made  a  pro- 
fession. If  intrigue  and  flattery,  "wire-pulling"  or 
"leg-pulling,"  masculine  arts  or  feminine  arts  of 
swaying  the  appointing  power,  furnish  means  of  ad- 
vancement, the  nobler  qualifications  of  love  of  learning 
and  devotion  to  the  needs  of  the  children  will  not  enter 
into  the  competition. 

Thus  the  ranks  of  our  teachers  become  filled  with 
those  who  know  nothing  and  have  no  care  to  know, 
with  those  who  use  the  ofiice  of  teacher  while  seeking 
marriage  or  an  opening  in  a  law  office;  with  those  who 
pay  more  for  the  dead  birds  on  their  hats  than  for  all 
the  books  they  read,  reckless  of  the  fact  that  every 
bird  killed  wantonly  leaves  this  world  a  little  less  worth 
living  in;  with  those  who  know  more  of  palmistry  than 
of  psychology,  of  euchre  or  the  two-step  than  of  the 
art  of  training  children. 

The  right  organization  of  our  schools  will  leave  no 
place  for  this  class  of  teachers.  It  will  make  teaching 
a  profession  not  to  be  lightly  undertaken  or  carelessly 
performed.  It  will  bring  back  to  the  ranks  of  the 
public  schools  many  of  our  most  gifted  men  and 
women  who  now  find  their  only  attractive  career  in 
the  overcrowded  ranks  of  the  instructorships  in  the 
colleges. 

^53 


POLITICS    IN    THE   SCHOOLS 

How  shall  we  escape  from  the  spoils  system  ?  How- 
shall  we  free  our  schools  from  personal  interference  in 
the  interest  of  personal  ends?  The  best  way  to  insure 
good  schools  is  to  secure  the  best  superintendent  pos- 
sible and  then  to  give  him  full  power  to  choose  teach- 
ers. By  this  means,  and  by  this  alone,  is  it  possible 
to  adapt  means  to  ends  and  make  the  school  system 
of  a  city  an  instrument  which  can  produce  the  best 
results.  All  great  work  is  the  realization  of  some 
ideal,  and  ideal  in  education,  as  elsewhere,  is  the  ideal 
not  of  a  board  but  of  a  man.  When  a  man  is  in  con- 
trol of  affairs,  a  limiting  statute  prescribing  what  he 
shall  not  do  is  an  impertinence. 

The  next  best  way  is  to  secure  a  superintendent 
through  the  means  found  necessary  in  the  civil  service. 
Let  him  attend  to  clerical  affairs  and  select  his  teachers 
for  him  by  competitive  examination.  Such  a  method 
is  pursued  in  the  service  of  most  enlightened  nations, 
and  it  has  been  found  almost  the  only  means  of  keep- 
ing this  service  free  from  corruption.  The  competi- 
tive examination  is  not  an  end  in  itself,  but  it  is  usually 
the  choice  of  evils.  It  is  never  the  best  way  ideally 
possible,  for  the  surest  way  to  select  good  servants  is 
to  trust  a  capable  and  honest  man  to  pick  them  out. 
It  becomes  necessary  when  we  have  to  deal  with  men 
we  cannot  trust.  The  civil  service  methods  are  used 
in  default  of  capable  and  honest  men.  They  serve  to 
pick  out  fairly  good  public  servants  and  to  exclude 
political  corruption  and   personal  pulls.     When    the 

-54 


POLITICS     IN    THE    SCHOOLS 

school  service  is  beset  by  vulg-ar  politicians  and  time- 
servers  anxious  to  help  needy  relatives  and  greedy 
applicants,  a  system  of  civil  service  examinations 
is  our  best  remedy.  But  we  must  remember  that 
no  form  of  competitive  examination  is  an  end  in 
itself.  It  is  simply  an  evil  which  may  be  neces- 
sary until  a  higher  civic  morality  and  a  higher  sense 
of  professional  honor  among  teachers  renders  it 
superfluous. 

Without  a  competent  and  trusted  superintendent  a 
school  system  of  the  highest  grade  is  impossible.  But 
fair  results  of  a  lower  order  may  be  reached  by  the 
choice  of  teachers  through  competitive  examinations. 
Without  these,  under  the  spoils  system  pure  and 
simple  the  schools  will  be  as  bad  as  the  bosses  dare 
make  them,  and  none  can  say  that  they  are  cowards. 
There  is  not  much  which  they  dare  not  do. 

Three  ways  to  remedy  the  evils  of  politics  in  the 
schools  may  be  suggested: 

I.  We  may  appeal  to  statute.  We  may  tie  up 
the  school  board  and  superintendent  by  laws  which 
shall  make  a  personal  or  political  appointment  a  mis- 
demeanor. We  may  place  such  tampering  on  the  judi- 
cial level  of  embezzlement,  where  it  morally  belongs. 

But  such  criminality  is  hard  to  define  and  harder 
to  prove.  Besides,  statutes  avail  little  unless  public 
opinion  backs  them.  Because  the  people  at  large 
wink  at  politics  in  the  schools,  tolerate  it,  ignore  it  or 
consider  it  smart,  our  school  boards  feel  justified  in 

25s 


POLITICS    IN    THE    SCHOOLS 

dividing  the  spoils.  And  there  is  never  much  value 
in  restrictive  laws.  We  have  too  many  statutory- 
crimes  already.  Criminal  law  cannot  go  beyond 
public  opinion  without  bringing  itself  into  contempt 
and  thus  into  ineffectiveness.  Only  gross  offenses, 
such  as  sale  of  places  for  money  or  favor  or  giving 
them  through  charity,  could  be  clearly  proved,  and 
under  any  statute  even  these  could  be  seldom  pun- 
ished. But  after  all  there  is  a  great  educational  force 
in  the  severe  enforcement  of  a  just  law,  even  though 
its  purpose  be  at  first  not  understood. 

Negatively  we  can  strengthen  the  case  a  little  by 
repealing  all  statutes  that  strengthen  the  teacher's 
hold  on  his  position.  Most  of  these  are  in  the  interest 
of  the  incompetent  teachers.  They  are  intended  to 
defend  the  beneficiaries  of  one  administration  from 
being  thrown  out  by  the  next.  The  removal  of  any 
teacher  that  holds  his  place  on  a  pull  is  likely  to  be  a 
good  thing  for  the  schools.  It  should  be  left  as  easy 
as  possible. 

There  are  certain  precedents  and  methods  in  the 
schools  of  many  cities  which  make  it  hard  for  teachers 
from  the  outside  to  secure  a  foothold.  Better  employ 
no  native-born  teachers  than  to  accept  no  others.  To 
move  about  is  part  of  education,  and  teachers  that 
have  never  been  away  from  home  are  not  likely  to  be 
very  stimulating  in  their  professional  work. 

2.  The  second  method  is  to  educate  the  commu- 
nity.    Let  the  people  know  what  good  schools  ought 

256 


POLITICS    IN    THE    SCHOOLS 

to  be  and  how  much  the  children  suffer  from  being 
forced  into  any  other  kind.  This  is  a  slow  method, 
but  it  is  effectual.  For  this  purpose  there  is  nothing 
better  than  object  lessons.  There  are  certain  cities  in 
California  which  are  object  lessons  in  this  regard.  We 
cannot  overestimate  the  value  of  their  example.  A 
competent  superintendent  can  usually  purify  the  board 
which  selects  him.  Most  political  crimes  come  from 
ignorance  rather  than  from  vicious  intention.  Very 
many  of  our  officials  are  inefficient  or  corrupt  simply 
because  they  do  not  know  what  the  people  have  the 
right  to  expect  them  to  do.  There  are  some  such 
who  can  be  brought  to  take  a  pride  in  good  schools, 
if  they  really  see  and  understand  them.  There  are 
some  superintendents  who  do  sound,  honest  work 
trusted  by  their  boards  and  by  their  communities. 
Let  the  number  increase. 

3.  Educate  the  teachers.  Quite  as  necessary  as 
the  training  of  the  public  is  the  bringing  of  the 
teachers  to  higher  standards  of  professional  honor.  If 
the  profession  is  to  be  raised  above  the  level  of  wire- 
pulling we  must  all  do  our  part.  Let  us  individually 
cease  to  look  toward  pull  and  intrigue  and  favoritism, 
and  to  trust  to  the  goodness  of  our  records  as  teachers 
for  our  advancement.  When  our  own  records  are 
clean  we  can  give  attention  to  the  records  of  others. 
We  should  cease  to  honor  wire-pullers  by  election  to 
office  in  our  associations.  We  should  go  as  far  as  the 
demands  of  courtesy  will  let  us  in  refusing  them  the 

257 


POLITICS    IN    THE    SCHOOLS 

right  hand  of  professional  fellowship.  We  should  not 
vote  for  them  when  they  are  candidates  for  our 
suffrages.  There  is  as  much  need  of  a  code  of  honor 
in  education  as  in  medicine.  When  teaching  becomes 
a  profession  the  code  will  be  superfluous,  for  no 
one  really  competent  and  enlightened  will  violate 
its  natural  provisions.  Most  teachers  find  positions 
through  the  help  of  other  teachers.  We  should  cease 
to  give  such  help  to  the  wire-puller,  the  schemer,  the 
self- advertiser,  the  man  who  blows  his  own  horn,  what- 
ever the  key,  whether  basso  or  soprano  or  falsetto. 
Some  of  our  colleges  refuse  to  recommend  or  even  to 
recognize  their  own  alumni  if  these  have  sought  to  rise 
in  their  profession  by  irregular  means. 

It  would  be  well  if  all  colleges  and  normal  schools 
should  adopt  this  rule  :  That  those  who  have  sought 
or  accepted  a  political  pull  should  never  receive  their 
commendation,  personal  or  official.  It  is  not  always 
easy  to  prove  the  truth  in  matters  of  this  kind,  but  as 
such  commendation  is  not  a  right,  it  is  proper  to  with- 
hold it  in  case  of  doubt.  The  teacher  is  an  accredited 
tribune  of  civilization.  He  should  represent  in  the 
community  intellectual  soundness  and  moral  upright- 
ness. In  the  minds  of  our  forefathers  his  place  as 
moral  and  intellectual  guide  stood  side  by  side  with 
that  of  the  spiritual  guide,  the  minister.  If  either 
calling  has  fallen  from  its  first  estate  of  honor  it  is  the 
fault  of  the  men  who  follow  it.  Clear-headed,  simple- 
hearted,  pure-souled  teachers  ennoble  the  profession. 


POLITICS    IN    THE    SCHOOLS 

Stupid,  untrained,  tricky  teachers  degrade  it.  And  of 
this  we  may  feel  sure,  our  profession  as  a  whole  stands 
just  about  where  the  outside  world  thinks  it  does.  The 
cold  public  hits  the  truth  very  exactly.  Teachers  are, 
as  a  rule,  overworked  and  underpaid.  At  least  we 
say  so  when  we  talk  it  over  among  ourselves.  But 
I  am  sure  that  on  the  whole  teachers  get  all  that 
they  are  worth.  The  fault  is  in  the  lack  of  discrimi- 
nation between  good  ones  and  poor  ones.  Some 
teachers  certainly  are  underpaid,  grossly  underpaid, 
when  we  consider  the  rewards  of  equal  success  in 
almost  any  other  profession.  But  only  real  success  of 
one  sort  or  another  receives  any  reward  at  all  in  most 
professions.  The  worthy  and  the  worthless,  the  honest 
and  the  tricky,  the  enterprising  and  the  indolent,  the 
enlightened  and  the  ignorant  are  not  paid  on  the  same 
schedule  in  any  other  profession.  There  are  men  in 
our  public  schools  in  California  whose  services  would 
be  cheap  to  any  town  at  $5,000  a  year  or  even 
$10,000.  There  are  many  others  who  would  be 
dearly  bought  at  $S  a  month.  And  some  of  each 
class  are  paid  $1,000  or  $2,000  or  $3,000  alike,  and  all 
are  lumped  together  by  the  politician  and  the  public 
as  * '  school  teachers. ' '  Sooner  or  later  our  people 
will  see  the  difference  and  act  accordingly.  If  we 
want  better  pay  we  must  bring  in  better  men  and 
women,  better  personally  and  better  professionally. 
To  this  end  we  must  so  conduct  our  profession  that 
men  and  women  cannot  rise  in  it  through  unfair  or 

259 


POLITICS    IN    THE    SCHOOLS 

corrupt  means,  and  we  must  give  our  help  and  recog- 
nition to  those  who  will  not  do  so. 

In  the  schools  of  today  the  history  of  the  next 
generation  is  written.  If  there  is  corruption  in  the 
schools  we  shall  see  it  in  the  body  politic.  The  only 
danger  which  besets  democracy  is  that  of  political 
corruption,  of  misuse  of  public  funds  and  public  trust 
for  personal  ends.  Democracy  has  nothing  to  fear 
from  outside  force  or  domestic  tyranny.  Its  worst 
enemy  is  in  the  dry  rot  of  popular  indifference  to 
questions  of  right  and  wrong,  which  brings  the  wet 
rot  of  official  imbecility  and  corruption.  Eternal  vigi- 
lance is  the  price  of  liberty,  and  the  public  school  is 
the  watch-tower  on  the  walls  of  democracy.  If  these 
sentinels  sleep,  we  shall  waken  to  shame. 

Eternal  vigilance  is  another  name  for  civic  devo- 
tion and  moral  awakening.  And  because  the  next 
generation  must  be  intellectually  and  morally  the 
reflex  of  the  schools  of  today,  reform  in  education 
is  the  most  vital  of  all  reforms. 


260 


XIV. 
THE    LESSONS   OF   THE   TRAGEDY. 

WE  MEET  today  under  the  sway  of  a  num- 
ber of  different  emotions.  We  would 
express  our  sorrow  at  the  untimely  death 
of  a  good  man.  We  would  show  our 
regret  that  our  nation  has  lost  the  Chief  Magistrate 
of  its  choice.  We  would  express  our  sympathy  with 
the  gentle  woman  who  has  been  suddenly  bereft  of  the 
kindest  and  most  considerate  of  husbands.  We  are 
filled  with  shame  that  in  our  Republic,  the  land  where 
all  men  are  free  and  equal  wherever  they  behave  them- 
selves as  men,  the  land  which  has  no  rulers  save  the 
public  servants  of  its  own  choosing,  a  deed  like  this 
should  be  possible.  We  would  express  our  detestation 
of  that  kind  of  political  and  social  agitation  which  finds 
no  method  of  working  reform  save  through  intimida- 
tion and  killing.  We  would  wish  to  find  the  true  les- 
sons of  this  ev^ent  and  would  not  let  even  the  least  of 
them  fall  on  our  ears  unheeded. 

And  one  plain  lesson  is  this  :  Under  democracy 
all  violence  is  treason.  Whosoever  throws  a  stone  at 
a  scab  teamster,  whosoever  fires  a  shot  at  the  presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  is  an  enemy  of  the  Republic. 
He  is  guilty  of  high  treason  in  his  heart,  and  treason 

261 


THE    LESSONS    OF    THE    TRAGEDY 

in  thought  works  itself  out  in  lawlessness  of  action. 

The  central  fact  of  all  democracy  is  agreement 
with  law.  It  is  our  law ;  we  have  made  it.  If  it  is 
wrong  we  can  change  it,  but  the  compact  of  democ- 
racy is  that  we  change  it  in  peace.  ' '  The  sole  source 
of  power  under  God  is  the  consent  of  the  governed. ' ' 
This  Cromwell  once  wrote  across  the  statute  books  of 
Parliament.  This  our  fathers  wrote  in  other  words  in 
our  own  Constitution.  The  will  of  the  people  is  the 
sole  source  of  any  statute  you  or  I  may  be  called  on 
to  obey.  It  is  the  decree  of  no  army,  the  dictum  of 
no  president.  It  is  the  work  of  no  aristocracy  ;  not  of 
blood  nor  of  wealth.  It  is  simply  our  own  under- 
standing that  we  have  to  do  right,  shall  behave  justly, 
shall  live  and  let  our  neighbor  live.  If  our  law  is 
tyrannous,  it  is  our  ignorance  which  has  made  it  so. 
Let  it  pinch  a  little  and  we  shall  find  out  what  hurts  us. 
Then  it  will  be  time  to  change.  Laws  are  made 
through  the  ballot,  and  through  the  ballot  we  can 
unmake  them.  There  is  no  other  honest  way,  no 
other  way  that  is  safe,  and  no  other  way  that  is 
effective.  To  break  the  peace  is  to  invite  tyranny. 
Lawlessness  is  the  expression  of  weakness,  of  igno- 
rance, of  unpatriotism.  If  tyranny  provokes  anarchy, 
so  does  anarchy  necessitate  tyranny.  Confusion  brings 
the  man  on  horseback.  It  was  to  keep  away  both 
anarchy  and  tyranny  that  the  public  school  was  estab- 
lished in  America. 

Three  times  has  our  nation   been  called  upon  to 

261 


THE     LESSONS    OF    THE    TRAGEDY 

pass  into  the  shadow  of  humiliation,  and  each  time  in 
the  past  it  has  learned  its  severe  lesson.  When  Lincoln 
fell,  slavery  perished.  To  the  American  of  today 
human  slavery  in  a  land  of  civilization  is  almost  an 
impossible  conception,  yet  many  of  us  who  think  our- 
selves still  young  can  remember  when  half  of  this  land 
held  other  men  in  bondage  and  the  dearest  hope  of 
freedom  was  that  such  things  should  not  go  on  forever. 
I  can  remember  when  we  looked  forward  to  the  time 
when  ' '  at  least  the  present  form  of  slavery  should  be 
no  more."  For  democracy  and  slavery  could  not 
subsist  together.  The  Union  could  not  stand  —  half 
slave,  half  free. 

The  last  words  of  Garfield  were  these  :  ^^Strangu- 
latus pro  Republica'"  (slain  for  the  Republic).  The 
feudal  tyranny  of  the  spoils  system  which  had  made 
republican  administration  a  farce,  has  not  had,  since 
Garfield's  time,  a  public  defender.  It  has  not  vanished 
from  our  politics,  but  its  place  is  where  it  belongs  — 
among  the  petty  wrongs  of  maladministration. 

Again  a  president  is  slain  for  the  Republic — and 
the  lesson  is  the  homely  one  of  peace  and  order, 
patience  and  justice,  respect  for  ourselves  through 
respect  for  the  law,  for  public  welfare,  and  for  public 
right. 

For  this  country  is  passing  through  a  time  of  storm 
and  stress,  a  flurry  of  lawless  sensationalism.  The  irre- 
sponsible journalism,  the  industrial  wars,  the  display 
of  hastily  gotten  wealth,   the  grasping  of  monopoly, 

263 


THE    LESSONS    OF    THE    TRAGEDY 

the  walking  delegate,  the  vulgar  cartoon,  the  foul- 
mouthed  agitator,  the  sympathetic  strike,  the  unsym- 
pathetic lockout,  are  all  symptoms  of  a  single  disease 
—  the  loss  of  patriotism,  the  decay  of  the  sense  of 
justice.  As  in  other  cases,  the  symptoms  feed  the 
disease,  as  well  as  indicate  it.  The  deed  of  violence 
breeds  more  deeds  of  violence;  anarchy  provokes  hys- 
teria, and  hysteria  makes  anarchy.  The  unfounded 
scandal  sets  a  hundred  tongues  to  wagging,  and  the 
seepage  from  the  gutter  reaches  a  thousand  homes. 

The  journal  for  the  weak-minded  and  debased 
makes  heroes  of  those  of  its  class  who  carry  folly  over 
into  crime.  The  half-crazy  egotist  imagines  himself 
a  regicide,  and  his  neighbor  with  the  clean  shirt  is  his 
oppressor  and  therefore  his  natural  victim.  Usually 
his  heart  fails  him,  and  his  madness  spends  itself  in 
foul  words.  Sometimes  it  does  not,  and  the  world 
stands  aghast.  But  it  is  not  alone  against  the  Chief 
Magistrate  that  these  thoughts  and  deeds  are  directed. 
There  are  usually  others  within  closer  range.  There 
is  scarcely  a  man  in  our  country,  prominent  in  any 
way,  statesman,  banker,  merchant,  railway  manager, 
clergyman,  teacher  even,  that  has  not,  somewhere,  his 
would-be  Nemesis,  some  lunatic,  with  a  sensational 
newspaper  and  a  pistol,  prepared  to  take  his  life. 

The  gospel  of  discontent  has  no  place  within  our 
Republic.  It  is  true,  as  has  often  been  said,  that  dis- 
content is  the  cause  of  human  progress.  It  is  truer 
still,  as  Mr.  John  P.  Irish  has  lately  pointed  out,  that 

264 


THE    LESSONS    OF    THE    TRAGEDY 


discontent  may  be  good  or  bad,  according  to  its  rela- 
tion to  the  individual  man.  There  is  a  noble  discon- 
tent which  a  man  turns  against  himself.  It  leads  the 
man  who  fails,  to  examine  his  own  weaknesses,  to 
make  the  needed  repairs  in  himself,  then  to  take  up 
the  struggle  again.  There  is  a  cowardly  discontent 
which  leads  a  man  to  blame  all  failure  on  his  prosper- 
ous neighbor  or  on  society  at  large,  as  if  a  social  sys- 
tem existed  apart  from  the  men  who  make  it.  This  is 
the  sort  of  discontent  to  which  the  agitator  appeals, 
that  finds  its  stimulus  in  sensational  journalism.  It  is 
that  which  feeds  the  frenzy  of  the  assassin  who  would 
work  revenge  on  society  by  destroying  its  accepted 
head. 

It  is  not  theoretical  anarchism  or  socialism  or  any 
other  ' '  ism ' '  which  is  responsible  for  this.  Many  of 
the  gentlest  spirits  in  the  world  today  call  themselves 
anarchists,  because  they  look  forward  to  the  time  when 
personal  meekness  shall  take  the  place  of  all  statutes. 
The  gentle  anarchism  of  the  optimistic  philosopher  is 
not  that  which  confronts  us  today.  It  is  the  anarchy 
of  destruction,  the  hatred  of  class  for  class;  a  hatred 
that  rests  only  on  distorted  imagination,  for,  after  all 
is  said,  there  are  no  classes  in  America.  It  is  the 
hatred  imported  from  the  Old  World,  excited  by 
walking  delegates  whose  purpose  it  is  to  carry  a  torch 
through  society;  a  hatred  fanned  by  agitators  of  what- 
ever sort,  unpractical  dreamers  or  conscienceless 
scoundrels,   exploited  in  the  newspapers,  abetted  by 

265 


THE    LESSONS    OF    THE    TRAGEDY 

so-called  high  society  with  its  display  of  shoddy  and 
greed,  and  intensified  by  the  cold,  hard  selfishness 
that  underlies  the  power  of  the  trust.  All  these  people, 
monopolists,  social  leaders,  walking  delegates,  agita- 
tors, sensationalists,  dreamers,  are  alien  to  our  ways, 
outside  the  scope  of  our  democracy,  and  enemies  to 
good  citizenship. 

The  real  Americans,  trying  to  live  their  lives  in 
their  own  way,  saving  a  little  of  their  earnings  and 
turning  the  rest  into  education  and  enjoyment,  have 
many  grievances  in  these  days  of  grasping  trusts  and 
lawless  unions.  But  of  such  free  Americans  our 
country  is  made.  They  are  the  people,  not  the  trusts 
or  the  unions,  nor  their  sensational  go-betweens.  This 
is  their  government,  and  the  government  of  the  people, 
by  the  people,  and  for  the  people  shall  not  perish  from 
the  earth.  This  is  the  people's  president  —  our  presi- 
dent—  who  was  killed,  and  it  is  ours  to  avenge  him. 

Not  by  lynch  law  on  a  large  or  small  scale  may  we 
do  it;  not  by  anarchy  or  despotism;  not  by  the  de- 
struction of  all  that  call  themselves  anarchists,  not  by 
abridging  freedom  of  the  press  nor  by  checking  free- 
dom of  speech.  Those  who  would  wreak  lawless  ven- 
geance on  the  anarchists  are  themselves  anarchists  and 
makers  of  anarchists. 

We  have  laws  enough  already  without  making" 
more  for  men  to  break.  Let  us  get  a  little  closer  to 
the  higher  law.  Let  us  respect  our  own  rights  and 
those  of  our  neighbor  a  little  better.     Let  us  cease  to 

166 


THE    LESSONS    OF    THE    TRAGEDY 

tolerate  sensational  falsehood  about  our  neighbor,  or 
vulgar  abuse  of  those  in  power.  If  we  have  bad 
rulers,  let  us  change  them  peacefully.  Let  us  put  an 
end  to  every  form  of  intimidation,  wherever  practiced. 
The  cause  that  depends  upon  hurling  rocks  or  epithets, 
upon  clubbing  teamsters  or  derailing  trains,  cannot  be  a 
good  cause.  Even  if  originally  in  the  right,  the  act 
of  violence  puts  the  partisans  of  such  a  cause  in  the 
wrong.  No  freeman  ever  needs  to  do  such  things  as 
these.  For  the  final  meaning  of  democracy  is  peace 
on  earth,  good-will  towards  men.  When  we  stand  for 
justice  among  ourselves  we  can  demand  justice  of  the 
monopolistic  trust.  When  we  attack  it  with  clear 
vision  and  cool  speech  we  shall  find  the  problem  of 
combination  for  monopoly  not  greater  than  any  other. 
And  large  or  small,  there  is  but  one  way  for  us  to 
meet  any  problem:  to  choose  wise  men,  clean  men, 
cool  men,  the  best  we  can  secure  through  our  method 
of  the  ballot,  and  then  to  trust  the  rest  in  their  hands. 
The  murder  of  the  president  has  no  direct  connection 
with  industrial  war.  Yet  there  is  this  connection,  that 
all  war,  industrial  or  other,  loosens  the  bonds  of  order, 
destroys  mutual  respect  and  trust,  gives  inspiration  to 
anarchy,  pushes  a  foul  thought  on  to  a  foul  word,  a 
foul  word  on  to  a  foul  deed. 

We  trust  now  that  the  worst  has  come,  the  foulest 
deed  has  been  committed,  that  our  civil  wars  may 
stop,  not  through  the  victory  of  one  side  over  the 
other,  the  trusts  or  the  unions  now  set  off  against  each 

267 


THE    LESSONS    OF    THE    TRAGEDY 

other,  but  in  the  victory  over  both  of  the  American 
people,  of  the  great  body  of  men  and  women  who 
must  pay  for  all,  and  who  are  the  real  sufferers  in 
every  phase  of  the  struggle. 

Strangulahis  pro  Republica — slain  for  the  Re- 
public. The  lesson  is  plain.  It  is  for  us  to  take  it 
into  our  daily  lives.  It  is  the  lesson  of  peace  and 
good-will,  the  lesson  of  manliness  and  godliness.  Let 
us  take  it  to  ourselves,  and  our  neighbors  will  take  it 
from  us. 

All  civilized  countries  are  ruled  by  public  opinion. 
If  there  be  a  lapse  in  our  civic  duties,  it  is  due  to  a 
lapse  in  our  keenness  of  vision,  our  devotion  to  jus- 
tice. This  means  a  weakening  of  the  individual  man, 
the  loss  of  the  man  himself  in  the  movements  of  the 
mass.  Perhaps  the  marvelous  material  development 
of  our  age,  the  achievements  of  the  huge  codperation 
which  science  has  made  possible,  has  overshadowed 
the  importance  of  the  individual  man.  If  so,  we  have 
only  to  reassert  ourselves.  It  is  of  men,  individual 
men,  clear-thinking,  God-fearing,  sound-acting  men, 
and  of  these  alone,  that  great  nations  can  be  made. 


268 


XV. 

THE    HOPES   OF   JAPAN. 

OF  ALL  the  lands  in  the  world  none  other  has 
the  peculiar  fascination  of  Japan.  Others 
have  equal  beauty  of  scenery,  greater 
grandeur  of  mountain  and  shore,  more 
noble  works  of  art,  more  complex  problems  of  society. 
But  none  other  possesses  an  equal  fascination.  No 
one  who  has  been  in  the  real  Japan  which  lies  outside 
the  treaty  ports  and  the  foreign  hotels  and  railways  ever 
could  or  ever  would  forget  his  experiences.  No  one, 
if  he  could,  would  ever  fail  to  return.  One  goes  out 
each  day  with  the  certainty  of  finding  a  chain  of  adven- 
tures, and  not  one  of  them  dangerous  or  unpleasant. 
The  great  secret  of  the  charm  of  Japan  lies  with 
the  people  themselves.  They  have  made  a  fine  art  of 
personal  relations.  Their  acts  are  those  of  good  taste 
and  good  humor.  Two  cities  of  about  the  same  size 
and  relative  importance  are  Paris  and  Tokyo.  No  two 
could  show  a  greater  contrast  in  spirit.  Both  are,  in 
a  sense,  cities  of  pleasure.  Tokyo  is  a  city  of  con- 
tinuous joyousness,  little  pleasures  drawn  from  simple 
things  which  leave  no  sting  and  draw  nothing  from 
future  happiness.  Compared  with  many  of  them,  the 
game  of  jackstraws  would  be  wild  revelry.      Paris  is. 

Z69 


THE    HOPES    OF    JAPAN 


feverish  and  feels  the  "difference  in  the  morning" 
and  the  ' '  hard,  fierce  lust  and  cruel  deed ' '  which  go 
with  the  search  for  pleasure  that  draws  on  the  future 
for  the  joys  of  the  present. 

No  one  who  catches  the  spirit  of  Paris  can  fail  to 
miss  the  underlying  sadness,  the  pity  of  it  all.  The 
spirit  of  Tokyo  —  not  of  all  Tokyo,  but  of  its  life  as  a 
whole — is  as  fresh  as  the  song  of  birds,  as  "  sweet  as  chil- 
dren's prattle  is,"  and  it  is  good  to  be  under  its  spell. 

Part  of  this  charm  lies  in  the  fair  scenery  of  Japan. 
Great  wooded  mountains,  snowy  cones  of  volcanoes, 
dashing  rivers  and  resting  lakes,  each  dropped  into  its 
place  with  a  wonderful  eye  to  the  picturesque.  The 
tall  cryptomerias  of  the  central  forests  rival  their  sister 
sequoias  and  redwoods  of  the  California  slopes.  The 
long-armed  pine,  Chinese  in  origin,  Japanese  by 
adoption  {Phiiis  thunbergi),  is  unique  among  trees, 
for  wherever  it  grows  it  stands  as  if  posing  for  its 
portrait,  the  center  of  each  scene  in  which  it  occurs. 
If  there  be  an  island  of  white  ashes  in  some  purple 
bay,  there  will  stand  seven  pines  in  a  row  across  it, 
each  pointing  its  long  arms  in  seven  different  direc- 
tions. On  the  old  royal  highway  of  the  feudal  days, 
from  end  to  end  of  Japan,  stand  long  rows  of  shelter- 
ing pines  as  old  as  the  dynasty,  each  with  all  the 
individuality  of  one  in  the  series  of  kings.  The  great 
pine  of  Karasaki,  on  the  Lake  of  Biwa,  stretches 
its  long  arms  further,  perhaps,  than  those  of  any 
other  tree  whatsoever  in  any  country. 


THE     HOPES    OF    JAPAN 


With  the  scenery  goes  the  wealth  of  flowers,  the 
hum  of  singing  insects,  and  in  early  days  the  song  of 
birds,  also,  until  the  soulless  Paris  milliner  and  the 
woman  with  dead  warblers  on  her  hat  wrought  their 
practical  extermination.  The  geography  and  the  his- 
tory of  Japan  each  has  its  charms  as  well,  and  these 
sink  deep  into  the  hearts  of  the  Japanese.  Every 
"moor  of  the  red  sedges"  was  once  the  scene  of  a 
great  battle.  On  every  mountain  pass  great  deeds 
were  wrought.  Even  though  these  names  and  deeds 
have  long  since  passed  into  mythology,  yet  they  are 
none  the  less  potent  to  touch  the  heart  of  the  new  as 
well  as  of  the  old  Japan.  From  the  great  central 
mountain  axis  of  the  main  island  rocky  promontories 
thrust  themselves  out  across  the  rice  fields  far  into  the 
sea.  The  warm  Kuro  Shiwo,  or  Black  Gulf  Stream, 
comes  up  from  the  Philippines  and  Formosa  and 
washes  the  crags,  Ise  and  Izu,  Kii  and  Misaki,  in 
which  these  promontories  end.  In  the  warm  water 
and  sultry  vapor-laden  air  is  developed  the  richest 
marine  life  that  dwells  on  any  coast  in  the  whole  world. 
And  this  abundance  of  life  on  land  and  sea  by  day  or 
by  night  is  one  of  the  joys  of  Japan. 

With  the  people  themselves  the  virtues  of  life  are 
all  closely  joined  together.  The  name  of  Bushido, 
"the  warrior's  way,"  means  the  spirit  of  honor,  the 
way  a  man  should  do  things,  and  this  honor  covers  all 
the  virtues  of  sobriety,  honesty,  hopefulness,  patriot- 
ism and  religion.    It  is  the  heart  of  Japanese  character. 

271 


THE     HOPES    OF    JAPAN 


It  makes  this  character  and  in  turn  is  created  by  it. 

The  Shinto  religion,  the  primitive  religion  of  Japan, 
is  often  defined  as  "ancestor  worship."  It  is  more 
than  this,  far  more,  but  it  is  also  less  than  this.  It 
has  been  called  no  religion  at  all,  because  it  has  no 
creed,  no  ceremonies  necessary  to  its  practice,  no 
sacred  legends  or  mysteries,  and  nothing  of  the 
machinery  of  spiritual  power  which  characterize  great 
religions  in  other  countries.  It  makes  no  proselytes. 
It  opposes  no  belief  and  insists  on  none.  It  is  the 
animating  spirit  that  causes  a  Japanese  to  love  his  chil- 
dren, to  be  kind  to  his  wife,  to  help  the  stranger,  to 
be  loyal  to  Japan,  to  devote  his  life  to  her  service, 
and,  above  all,  to  be  worthy  of  the  traditions  of  his 
ancestry,  to  be  a  man,  even  as  his  great  fathers  were, 
and  to  do  no  act  which  is  unworthy  of  his  class  of 
Samurai,  of  his  education  or  of  his  training. 

No  other  land  has  better  soldiers  than  the 
Japanese,  not  because  of  their  strength  or  endurance, 
for  they  are  a  small  and  feeble  folk,  but  because  they 
will  obey  orders,  because  they  wish  to  obey,  for 
in  so  doing  they  do  their  part  in  the  glory  and  the 
upbuilding  of  Japan.  The  Japanese  students  belong 
largely  to  the  Samurai  class,  the  old  feudal  retainers, 
and  the  feeling  of  loyalty  to  Japan  is  the  animating 
spirit  in  all  their  studies  and  in  all  their  work.  It  is 
the  spirit  of  honor,  the  Bushido,  the  warrior's  way,  the 
religion  of  Japan. 

So  long  as  the  Japanese  keeps  this  feeling  he  is 
272 


THE     HOPES    OF    JAPAN 


worthy  of  trust.  When  he  loses  his  religious  spirit, 
his  spirit  of  personal  pride,  whatever  his  rank  or 
creed,  he  becomes  a  degenerate,  open  to  the  attacks 
of  all  the  vices.  For  this  reason  a  Japanese  who  has 
lost  his  self-respect  and  grown  careless  or  indolent  is 
one  of  the  least  useful  of  men,  and  soon  sinks  to  the 
level  of  the  similarly  outcast  Anglo-Saxon. 

These  facts  will  help  us  to  understand  certain  criti- 
cisms on  Japan.  The  merchant  complains  that  the 
Japanese  have  no  business  head  and  are  careless  of 
their  contracts.  In  this  connection  we  may  note  the 
paradox  in  the  relations  of  the  Japanese  and  Chinese 
to  business  methods  and  to  public  honesty.  The 
Chinese  are  the  business  men  of  the  Orient.  The 
word  of  a  Chinese  is  his  bond,  and  his  contracts  are 
carried  out  to  the  letter.  In  Japan  the  merchant  who 
has  miscalculated  asks  his  creditors  to  pay  his  debts. 
This  same  good  nature  he  shows  to  others,  if  con- 
ditions are  reversed.  His  sense  of  good  taste  is 
stronger  than  his  sense  of  equity.  Yet,  while  from 
the  highest  to  the  lowest  the  public  life  of  China  is 
corrupt,  there  are  few  countries  on  earth  so  honestly 
governed  as  Japan.  The  spirit  of  honor  animates  a 
Japanese  official,  and  a  public  office  with  him  is  a 
sacred  trust. 

The  contractor  complains  that  the  Japanese  laborer 
is  lazy,  drunken,  overbearing.  This  is  true  in  a  de- 
gree, for  only  the  unemployed,  the  idle  and  thriftless 
Japanese  are  likely  to  swell  the  ranks  of  unskilled  or 


THE     HOPES    OF    JAPAN 


contract  labor.  This  vicious  system  of  semi-slavery, 
the  social  curse  and  the  financial  gain  of  Hawaii,  has 
brought  under  our  flag  a  class  of  Japanese  not  useful 
to  us  and  not  creditable  to  Japan. 

The  missionary  says  that  Japan  is  given  over  to 
materialism,  and  that  Herbert  Spencer  holds  greater 
sway  over  even  the  converts  to  Christianity  than  the 
church.  The  man  of  science  notes  the  preference  of 
the  Japanese  scholar  for  memorization  of  words  or  for 
half-understood  abstrusities  of  philosophy.  It  is  said 
that  there  is  no  philosophy  in  Japan,  and  into  this 
vacuum  comes  Herbert  Spencer.  The  man  of  the 
world  finds  the  Japanese  immoral,  not  remembering 
that  vice  is  everywhere  near  him  that  seeks  it. 

But  all  these  criticisms  are  skin  deep.  Under  all 
is  the  great,  loyal,  generous  nation,  the  embodiment 
of  good  hope,  good  taste,  and  good-will,  a  people 
who  love  their  homes,  their  children  and  their  country, 
on  whose  soil  no  foreign  invader  has  ever  yet  set  foot. 

The  teachers  of  Tokyo  once  asked  me  to  speak  to 
them  on  the  subject  of  ' '  What  Japan  has  to  learn  from 
the  educational  experience  of  America. ' '  In  response, 
I  told  them  that  Japan  has  to  learn  the  value  of  indi- 
vidual initiative  and  individual  adequacy,  that  equity  is 
higher  than  courtesy;  that  the  cure  for  vice  is  found 
not  in  prohibition,  but  in  the  strengthening  of  the 
moral  backbone  of  the  individual  man;  that  woman 
must  be  trained  to  wisdom  if  homes  are  to  be  the  cen- 
ters of  culture  and   purity,  and   that  the  final  end  of 

274 


THE    HOPES    OF    JAPAN 


education  is  not  official  promotion,  nor  personal  cul- 
ture, nor  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  for  its  own 
sake,  but  the  development  of  personal  effectiveness. 
A  man  should  know  the  world  and  his  place  in  it, 
that  he  may  do  his  part  to  the  best  advantage  of  him- 
self and  others. 

But  more  important  than  the  lessons  which  I  tried 
to  emphasize  was  the  spirit  with  which  the  lessons 
were  received.  Eager  to  learn  and  eager  to  make  use 
of  whatever  was  new,  and  behind  it  all  a  real  prepara- 
tion for  new  ideas.  In  my  explorations  of  the  natural 
history  of  Japan,  even  in  the  most  remote  villages,  I 
found  everywhere  men  glad  to  cooperate,  with  an  in- 
telligent comprehension  of  what  I  was  trying  to  do. 
As  a  Japanese  friend  remarked,  this  would  not  be  the 
case  if  Japan  were  not  already  a  truly  civilized  country. 

In  returning  from  Northern  Japan  to  the  City  of 
Sendai,  in  which,  on  my  way  northward,  I  had  been 
most  hospitably  treated,  I  received  a  request  from 
the  city  officers  that  I  would  allow  them  to  visit  me 
at  my  room. 

About  a  dozen  of  them  came,  with  editors,  law- 
yers, teachers  and  other  persons  of  prominence. 
After  the  usual  compliments,  the  spokesman  said  that 
they  would  like  to  know  from  me  how  they  could 
make  Sendai  a  better  city.     He  said  that  — 

"Japan  was  like  a  country  boy  who  had  come  to 
town  and  found  many  things  which  are  new  and 
strange.     This  boy  found  in  America  an  elder  brother, 

275 


THE    HOPES    OF    JAPAN 


who  could  give  true  advice  and  honest  help  in  all  the 
difficulties  of  the  new  situation.  As  an  American  1 
was  welcome  to  Sendai,  and  Sendai  would  like  from 
me  all  the  help  I  might  be  willing  to  give. ' ' 

After  a  discussion  of  what  could  be  done  for  the 
clean  and  wholesome  town  of  Sendai  to  make  it  even 
more  clean  and  wholesome,  he  touched  on  the  ques- 
tion of  Japanese  emigration.  He  was  very  sorry  that 
the  government  had  allowed  men  to  go  out  from  the 
cities  of  the  Inland  Sea  to  America  as  contract  labor- 
ers. Among  these  were  many  bad  Japanese,  and  they 
had  produced  a  bad  impression  in  America.  Many 
Americans  had  come  to  think  that  all  Japanese  were 
like  these.  But  those  who,  like  me,  had  seen  the  Jap- 
anese at  home  knew  they  were  not.  The  government 
of  Japan  understands  this  situation  and  will  let  no 
more  contract  laborers  leave  the  country.  Only  the 
student,  the  skilled  artisan,  the  good  citizen  of  Japan 
will  be  allowed  to  come  to  America,  and  any  wish  of 
America,  if  courteously  made  known  to  Japan,  will  be 
fully  respected. 

The  Japanese  everywhere  feel  toward  America  a 
peculiar,  almost  romantic,  gratitude.  It  was  America 
who  in  1854  first  opened  Japan  to  the  activities  of  the 
West,  and  furnished  the  occasion  for  the  downfall  of 
the  outworn  feudal  system  and  the  dual  role  of  Shogun 
and  Mikado.  It  was  America  who  led  in  the  establish- 
ment of  the  Japanese  school  system  and  the  great 
Imperial  University  at  Tokyo.      It  was  America  who 

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was  first  willing  to  allow  Japan  full  jurisdiction  in  her 
own  ports,  which  had  been  opened  to  foreign  residence 
and  foreign  trade.  To  Japan,  America  is  her  nearest 
and  best  friend  among  the  nations,  her  guide  and 
leader  in  paths  which  are  new  and  strange. 

The  lesson  of  the  Shimoneseki  incident  in  1 863  has 
never  been  lost  on  Japan.  Every  schoolboy  knows  it 
and  its  meaning.  Certain  ships,  Dutch,  French  and 
American,  passing  through  the  Inland  Sea,  were  fired 
on  at  Shimoneseki.  Afterward  these,  with  a  British 
ship,  bombarded  and  destroyed  the  town,  collecting  at 
the  same  time  $3,000,000  as  indemnity,  which  was 
divided  among  the  Powers.  Later  investigation 
showed  that  the  blame  was  not  all  on  one  side,  and 
the  United  States  returned  the  $750,000  to  Japan. 
This  chivalrous  act  of  common  courtesy,  never  known 
before  or  since  among  great  Powers,  at  once  placed 
the  United  States  in  a  class  apart  in  dealing  with  affairs 
in  the  Orient.  When  the  vulgar  politicians  of  Europe 
whom  we  call  the  ' '  Great  Powers  ' '  ceased  nagging 
Japan,  outrages  and  unfriendly  feeling  passed  away. 
The  lesson  of  all  this  is  worth  heeding  in  the  great 
tragedy  of  the  vivisection  of  China.  For  genuine 
commerce  rests  on  a  basis  of  mutual  trust  and  mutual 
esteem.  Trade  cannot  be  built  up  by  force  of  arms, 
nor  are  its  profits  ever  great  enough  to  make  good 
the  cost  and  waste  of  a  great  army.  Of  all  the 
nations  of  the  Orient,  Japan  is  the  only  one  which  can 
in  truth  be  called  well  governed.     Japan  is  i;he  only 

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THE     HOPES    OF    JAPAN 


one  which  has  had  undisturbed  possession  of  herself. 
The  Japanese  choose  their  own  ruler,  make  their 
own  laws,  train  their  own  armies,  control  their  own 
trade.  They  are  the  only  Oriental  people  free 
from  the  mighty  curse  of  opium,  for  they  have  the 
right  to  exclude  it  from  their  ports.  The  trade  of 
Japan  is  great  and  growing.  The  profits  of  this  trade 
must  go  to  those  from  whom  the  Japanese  may  choose 
to  buy.  To  the  end  of  controlling  this  trade  and 
through  it  the  trade  of  the  Orient  to  which  Japan  holds 
the  key,  we  have  to  offer  only  fair  dealing,  personal 
courtesy,  and  the  chivalrous  spirit  which  draws  to- 
gether men  and  nations. 


278 


Date  Due  AA    001  147  421    o 


3  1210  00134  0965 


